Would You Like To Buy Some Akatsuki Cookies?
by HirataSan
Summary: Art can be dangerous at times, it was either that or fate that brought two infamous artists to Konaha. Alone and confused, Hirata and Miyuki appear in an unknown place and are struggling to find help. But is the Akatsuki really the help they meant?
1. Freak Art Accident

**I finally uploaded it, Yuki-Chan!! *w*  
Please be proud of me T^T  
A/N ~ It won't be 1st person throughout the whole story. This is also kind of an introduction ^^''  
Please Enjoy! 8D**

"Humiliating" was the word that first came up into my mind.

"Just so extremely _spectacular,_" Were the words I so sarcastically spat out at the world.

"We're just _standing_ here, and I bet we look like a couple of complete _noobs_!"

In agony, I dramatically flung myself on the ground in front of the well we were standing in front of. I hurt my a** a little bit, but I didn't want to show it. So I folded my arms and crossed my legs and started to pout as Miyuki, my companion in crime; was worriedly scanning the moving crowd of people in front of us in search of someone to help us. I sighed, leaned my back against the wall and propped myself up on my arms. "What should we do, Sempei?" Miyuki asked after finally giving up on the search. "Everybody seems to either be in a rush, or too conceited to care about our problems." I thought, for a while in fact, and came up with the conclusion, "It's not all _that_ bad. I mean, seriously, it could be… raining. And a car could splash mud on us or something."

My name is ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Hirata, Hira for short. Most people I know call me Hira-Chan, but Miyuki (who I call Yuki-Chan) titled me Sempei. We will admit and say proudly that we are anime/manga lovers as well as Narutards. Not only do we together share a mind about manga and anime, but we also love art- art of the Japanese manga-anime nature preferably. Speaking of art, it got us into a freak-accident… Being the good students we are, Yuki-Chan and I were working on an English project that involved pencils, markers, paper, and possibly some rulers. We were working on what you call a "poster", a poster that we were surely to get an A on… Or so we thought. I had invited Yuki-Chan over to my house to complete the final touches on our sure to be perfect score poster. The words now seem so distant, but before the happening, I had commented, "These seem like really good markers you have here, Yuki-Chan~." She had said in reply, "Why thank you Sempei, I got them for my birthday from my Dad. He said he got them from a suspicious looking street-vender in New York, but he thinks a lot of things are suspicious. Art can be suspicious at times, but it is never eternal." I started, "Alas, I have to disagree with you-" before I took a whiff of the marker. It smelt fairly pleasant, like art, but then it changed altogether. "Neh, Yuki-Chan… what do you think this marker smells like?" I handed the marker over to her; she took it and inhaled a great amount of the brain-numbing source. "It smells like-" **Thud** I fell over, unable to hear what she was about to say next.

Then BAM, we ended up waking up here, in this cold, unknown, and confusing place. Cold, no, because it was fairly warm, humid, but pleasant. Unknown, yes, how the hell were we supposed to know were you just appear after you were just sitting in your room engaging in a chat with your friend? Confusing, oh hell yeah, first off, why were people dressed in so many bright, painful to look at colors? Second, how on earth can _ordinary_ people walk that figmin fast? Third, they weren't bumping into each other! It's part of life, confusion, but it didn't appear _anywhere,_ at least not in front of our eyes. Miyuki sank down next to me in despair, which brought me back to earth, if we were there. "So what should we do, Sempei?" pleaded Miyuki, "We should do something." Looking ahead at the crowd, I sighed, "I dunno what we can do. Maybe we should just wait here, somebody'll do something eventually…"

"Where do you think we are anyway?" questioned Miyuki.

I shrugged, "Dunno, not in my room."

"I don't know why you seem so annoyed, Sempei." Miyuki replied hugging her knees.

"Well… I _am_ a _little_ bit curious, but we won't be able to finish the poster on time when we get back." I pouted.

"If we ever get back." Miyuki corrected in a solemn attitude, examining her red sock covered feet.

That was the first time it struck me, and it hit me hard, on the head, like an anvil soaring across a room at top velocity, hitting my head, _hard_. Dumbstruck, I sat there, mouth agape looking like an idiot, or a baka. Yuki-Chan giggled, "You look funny, Sempei~". Coming once again to my senses, I mimicked the curled up knee hugging position Yuki-Chan was in. She continued, "You space out a lot, 'specially during school." I sighed, giving her a sarcastic smile, I exclaimed, "Yep, not aware of my surroundings, I get an A on that," silence again, "like that A we were supposed to get on that advertisement poster we were making for English." I finished. Yuki-Chan obviously didn't want anymore silence because then she asked, "Do you think your iPod works?"

"I don't know, let me check."

There it was, my trusty blue iPod shuffle, chuck full with Japanese and awesome songs alike. Yuki crossed her fingers impatiently as I suspended my pointer finger in the air to turn the iPod on in slow motion. "Now this will determine our destiny between boredom, and entertainment. If the iPod showith red, our might be eternity here will be doomed. Beith green, we shall not be forsaken…" I droned on as to annoy Miyuki. "If the destiny-determining machine broadcasts the color of the orange fruit we shall-" Miyuki switched the iPod on without me. I was quite disappointed that my job had been taken away from me, so arms flailing everywhere, I shouted at Miyuki, "Hey! That was my job! I was only teasing, you know. You knew that! But nooo you have to go and take all the fun away from-" Miyuki stopped my pointless rant. "Hey Sempei, the light's green." I was silenced, probably for a while, so I pouted as I admitted, "Yeah, it is… So I guess we're not that forsaken…" Smiles went between the two of us, I handed her the right ear bud, and shoved the left into the designated area of my left ear hole. This time I clicked the circular play button at regular speed. Only to find out I had left the iPod on at a deafeningly loud volume. Both of us jumped up and sat up straight in alarm to the deafening sound, I could've sworn I saw yellow sound exaggeration marks around us. I finally slammed my finger down to press the button that would diminish the painful shrieking sound, we were still twitching a little, but most of the discomfort went away… Then it started raining.

"Oh, come ON!" It was Miyuki's turn to spew her feelings out at the world.

"I guess heaven has forsaken us," I groaned as I slumped back against the bricks. "Or else I would've remembered to bring an umbrella." No reply, this was nothing to laugh about. It started raining harder, and we recognized that L's theme was playing on the iPod still. We had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody to help us because even the crowd thinned out to an acute minimum. Eventually, there were only hooded individuals scuttling to find shelter. "Problem 4, how does an omega huge crowd disappear so quickly?" I exclaimed. I guess Yuki-Chan fell asleep, because she replied to my remark with a faint giggle and started dozing off once the piano version of Nagareboshi followed River Flows in You by Yiruma. I allowed Yuki-Chan to rest her head on my shoulder, for I also forgot to bring a pillow as well as a blanket along with the umbrella. *Note: come on, grow up, you sick pervs out there, I know I've got a twisted mind too, but go somewhere else to read your yuri/yaoi crap, you creeps. * After the piano version of Nagareboshi ended, the full version of the original came on after it. I found myself singing along to it in a very soft voice as rain continued to cascade down onto our heads. I managed somehow to keep the iPod fairly dry, but we got soaked. Again, it was a nice humid temperature, just the way I like it. I don't really mind the rain after all… I wasn't entirely sure about Yuki-Chan, though.

A few minutes later, Miyuki stirred and mumbled something about spiders and how they crawl into your mouth when you're sleeping. But I could be wrong. Almost immediately after, I heard scuffling noises above the din of the rain. Miyuki probably heard too because she shot up with her back straight and her eyes half opened instantly. There was a silhouette in the foggy downpour of the rain, it was tall (we were sitting down) and it was hard to tell what it was… The figure seemed to have a bell shaped body, and what seemed like scissors coming out from the top. It looked as if it hesitated, but motioned toward us never the less. Seeming as if it glided through the fog, its face was still shadowed as it stopped about a foot or two in front of us.

-(Meanwhile)-

The Akatsuki are feared, why shouldn't they be? They are evil and do they have a reason? Sure, it could be just this: Why not be evil? There's probably a deeper, darker answer to their participation in the organization, but who honestly cares? Possibly sympathetic people who have no life might, but that's beside the point. The Akatsuki consisted of ten members: Pain, Konan, Zetsu, Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame, Itachi, Sasori, Deidara, and Tobi. Each and every one of them has their own, unique and questionable problems, enough said. Sure they're bad-guys, but even bad-guys have lives, right? Let's just agree that they do, for the sake of this entire fan-fiction.

**A/N ~ That was kinda like a preview for the next chapter...?**


	2. Kakuzu's Extra Cash

**A/N ~ Kakuzu and Hidan are in a cellar together~ XDD You people might know where I'm getting at...  
Too bad for you!! CX**

Kakuzu was counting the organization's savings as usual, and was quite pleased when he finished. "Kukukukuku~ It seems we have a large amount of money left over after we subtract living expenses." Kakuzu snickered to himself under his breath. Too bad for him it was loud enough to wake a sleeping Hidan in the corner. "EH!?!!???!?" Hidan woke with a start; he grabbed his oversized comb from behind him and was looking this way and that with sleepy eyes. "What was that, Kakuzu?!" Attempting to hide the money, Kakuzu turned his back to Hidan and was stuffing wad fulls of money into various wallets labeled "AKATSUKI SAVINGS." "Nothing, Hidan-San, go back to sleep." Kakuzu hissed. Hidan almost agreed, but a large amount of yen fell from Kakuzu's grasp and drifted to the cement floor. "Since when did you get so careless?" Hidan questioned as he strode to retrieve the dropped money, rubbing his yes with his one hand that wasn't occupied with his scythe. He handed the dropped money to Kakuzu, who snatched it greedily, and glanced at Kakuzu's balance notebook. He was amazed by the calculations he read. "NANI?!!?" Hidan started off, he grinned and continued. "There's no escaping it, Kakuzu, even a retarded amoeba could tell…" "Tell What?" Kakuzu hissed, still attempting to conceal the cash. "Baka," Hidan sneered, "What a sinner you are, lying to those above of you. Jashin would be displeased, same with Leader-Sama if he finds out there's extra money not being used." Hidan slyly grin, "Then again, what Leader-Sama doesn't know won't hurt him," He made a motion towards the door out of Kakuzu's counting cellar, "I guess I should just go tell Kisame to buy some Sake or something. Hey, maybe even Deidara can get a haircut!" Hidan made his way to the door and rested his hand on the doorknob; Kakuzu remained close behind him with his eyes squinted for he was suspicious. "We could buy a sacrifice for Jashin too! Hell, we've got so much f****** extra cash, we could even buy Tobi candy!" With a last evil grin, Hidan wrenched the door open and shot down the hallway. Kakuzu wasn't sure why he did; he didn't have the money, did he? Kakuzu checked his cloak pockets… Then he raced after Hidan, you can guess why.

"Hidan! Get your sorry a** back here!" Kakuzu shrieked as he turned a corner. Hidan was soaring through the hallways with the cash, leaving poor Kakuzu in the dust. "Maybe we could buy Itachi some more hair conditioner!" Hidan called back snickering, "We could probably use some more of the d purple nail polish, too…" He added thoughtfully. Kakuzu faithfully chased the money thief. He gasped, "If, you, DARE, waste, that, money, there, will, be, hell, to pay!!" Up front, Hidan continued to run, he turned left towards his room, and right into the Akatsuki leader. "What do we have here…?" Pain mumbled expressionlessly. Meanwhile, Kakuzu was springing pas Konan's room as she was leaving it, concluding his marathon with a big fact, "I am going to die 2nd" ribbon. "Hm…" Konan stated as she stared down at the officially terrified Kakuzu. "Gomen, gomen," apologized Kakuzu with a sweat mark appearing on his head, "I wouldn't have run into you if Hidan weren't running away with my money. (Or if you weren't so big.)" Kakuzu mumbled that last part under his breath; he figured if he was going to die, he would have some fun. A vain mark popped up on the side of Konan's forehead. "Wanna die, b****?" She asked menacingly clenching her fists. "Figured I was going to anyway." Replied Kakuzu coolly.

Meanwhile, Hidan had just avoided trouble by the skin of his scythe by confessing to Pain that there was extra money he could invest in. "That's good, tell Kakuzu to come here, I'll settle matters with him. I'm thinking of getting new members for the Akatsuki." Pain had said. "Oh he'll be here in no time." Hidan replied, and in fact, his prediction came true, not in the way he expected it to though. Konan was storming down the hallways towards them officially pi**** dragging poor Kakuzu by the collar. "Excellent, Konan. Good job." Pain complemented, too bad Konan was beyond cheering up. Expressionlessly, he continued, "I guess I'll take Kakuzu off your hands now." Konan grunted and hurled Kakuzu into a door behind the two, and marched back to her room. The two stared with anime sweat drops and took that as a threat. "What the f***, Konan…" Hidan swore under his breath. Kakuzu had birdies flying around him, his eyes swirls, then the door he was flung into opened, officially squishing him behind it. Then emerged a strangely happy Deidara, "Hey! What's up, un? I heard we got extra cash, un!" Deidara exclaimed. He looked over beside the door to see a Kakuzu successfully K.O-ed by Deidara himself. He didn't really seem to care, so he walked through the doorway with his hands on his hips and said rather loudly, "So what're we gonna spend it on first, un?" Just after, Tobi appeared magically behind him and answered, "LET'S BUY COOKIES, SEMPEI!!!" scaring Deidara out of his wits. Deidara's eyes went wide and several vain marks popped up on his head. "TOBI YOU BAKA!!!" He sonic boomed, "Why do you have to pop up at the best of times, un?!!?!?" Tobi Pouted, "Waaaa~, Sempei's so scary~ Look, you even hurt Kakuzu-San too, Sempei!" Giving Tobi an 'I don't give a freakin un' annoyed look, Deidara shoved his hands into his pockets and was unexpectedly hit by the opening of Sasori's door. "What all the racket? All of you are being as annoying as my Grandma on a Saturday afternoon." Sasori yawned, Itachi's door opened and he added, "And as loud as Sasori when he doesn't get his beauty sleep." Itachi rubbed his eyes. "Or Kisame when he's ranting on about how he's going to marry Veronica on the top of a mountain and I' not invited to the wedding." Just then, Kisame's head popped out of the door across from Itachi's. "I heard that." He hissed, and then he slid out of his room to stand next to Itachi so he could give him many sideways glares. Deidara went to go punch Tobi in the head for no reason while holding on hand on a bump he received from the door, and Kakuzu regained his ability to move and crawled out from behind the door. They all stood there, in a situation of calamity.

-(In the Meantime)-

It didn't dare come any closer, maybe because we just seemed like a pair of very frightening kids, but it did mumble something inaudible to our ears.

**A/N ~ Maybe that was another preview to the next chapter? .____.**


	3. Zetsu' and the 'Visitors'

"What'd it say?" Miyuki whispered urgently. "Dunno, I'm gonna ask who or what it is." I whispered back. By that time the thing moved a little closer to us. Maybe it was a gesture showing it didn't hear what we were saying or something. "It's big, Sempei! Say something!" Miyuki said as she jabbed me in the ribs. Finally I mustered the courage to squeak, "Wh-Who are you?" It seemed like it crackled, and then the thing spoke. It said, "What?" in a low, mysterious sounding voice. "She asked who the hell you where! Gosh, just answer the d*** question!" Miyuki erupted. I snickered, and then said, "Wow, Yuki-Chan." Both Yuki and I started to giggle, but before we broke into laughter, the thing answered our 'd***' question. "My name is Zetsu. I would like to know your bloody names. I answered first, "Heya! My name's Nozomi Hirata, but most people I know call me Hira-." I stopped myself because I saw Yuki-Chan's stunned face, and then realized a detail my stupidity missed. Jaws dropped, eyes wide, the both of us exclaimed "Zetsu?!?" at the same time, and because Miyuki's brain was faster, she added, "We must be at an anime convention of some sort." After a milli-second of thought she then added, "And you must be one of the devoted staff members who come to check the area even when the convention's over!" Miyuki seemed pretty proud of her conclusion, but the 'Zetsu' stomped on her happiness by saying, "What the hell do you mean, anime convention? And don't use the word 'devoted', it's stupid and worthless, like what you two appear to be." I stood up for Yuki-Chan, nobody was gonna make her sad/and or insult us and get away with it! So I glared up at him, though his face still wasn't visible, I yelled up at him anyway. "Hey! Listen here, if you really are that Oreo dude with that flower around his head, you still can't hurt Yuki-Chan in any way!" That got me another mumble from him, it sounded a little like "These chicks are crazy." So I stood up, and advanced a couple of inches towards him. He was only about an inch taller than me (excluding his plant apparel) and stared at me with beady, yellow eyes. While I was examining his headpiece, Miyuki had also gotten up and stood next to me to examine his red cloud clad cloak. We were thoroughly convinced that he was just an excellent cosplayer who knows where to buy his cosplay attire. I whistled, "Wow~ this seems like a work of art!" Yuki-Chan agreed, "Yeah, it's excellent material!" She giggled then added, "If it's art it must be destroyed sooner or later, preferably by explosion." I got where Yuki-Chan was going, "Ha! You and your theories, art is eternal, got that?" Before we could enjoy our little inside joke/role-play, 'Zetsu' once more interrupted, "You two talk annoyingly a lot like Sasori and Deidara. I should tell them they've got people who agree with their 'art' crap." Both of us snapped back, "Art is NOT crap!!" Then I said, "Hey, did you just say you knew Sasori no Danna and Deidei-Chan?" I added hopefully, "can we meet them?" 'Zetsu' laughed at my calling Deidara 'Chan' while Miyuki frowned at it. "Sure, I'll take you to see them." 'Zetsu' said. Miyuki warned me, "They're probably not the real ones, Sempei." I didn't care, "Even if they aren't, they might have equally cool cosplay outfits!" I smiled, "And it's better than sitting here waiting for my iPod's battery to run out." Yuki-Chan sighed, then obliged. Then we followed the cloaked man through the fog away from the well.

-(Back With the Akatsuki)-

Pain had enough, he said in an annoyed tone, "You are all painfully irritating, now shut the f*** up before Konan comes back." Konan seems to have a way of disappointing everyone, or making herself appear at the worst of times, because she stormed once more down the hallway just after Pain made his 'suggestion'. Konan was fuming as she grind her teeth and halted right in front of Pain, whose back was the only one that was turned. The rest of the organization stared up behind Pain with terrified looks and sweat drops as Pain knew what was coming. He didn't bother turning around and braced himself for what was to come. "YOU LITTLE-" Konan started, but was cut off by Zetsu emerging from the ground in the center of their group circle. "Sorry to interrupt, but we've got some company." All eight of the group stood there and stared at their comrade whose body was half way through the floor. Deidara dared to speak first, "What the hell are you talking about, un?!"

**A/N ~ Woah, that's pretty short. o_o  
When I first typed the whole thing out, it was in one piece. I had to go and split it up, so it ended up like this T^T**


	4. It's Quite Clear, It's Konaha

**Yuki-Chan threatened me to have it done by tonight O___O''  
Lol, I made her do a daring thing~ CX**

"You heard what I said _Deidei-Chan_." Zetsu snickered. Deidara stared at him with wide eyes, "What the F*** UN?!!?!?? What's gotten into you Zetsu, un?!?!!??!?" Deidara screeched in rage vain marks popping up as they did for Tobi. The rest once again stared with sweat marks, and Zetsu was laughing evilly. "Told you we have guests, got a problem with that? I don't think you want to keep them waiting, they're here to see _Sasori no Danna_ and _Deidei-Chan_." He vanished through the floor and snickered all the way down. Hirata and Miyuki sat there in awe; they knew where they were now. After Zetsu's performance of revealing the hideout, and his amazing feat of rising through the figmin ceiling, the duo knew exactly where they were. "I take it back, this place isn't bad at all!" Hirata exclaimed as she got up from the wooden bench they were seated at. "In fact, we're really LUCKY!" She was then poking and prodding the rock walls that surrounded them. Then she finally walked to the center of the dimly lit room and yelled, "We're in figmin KONAHA!!" Hirata spun around with glee. Miyuki was still sitting on the bench with her hands under her thighs staring at her soaked red-socked feet. She didn't mean to, but Miyuki troubled Hirata when she spun to face her. "What's the matter, Yuki-Chan?" She trilled, "We're in Konaha!"

"We _were_ in Konaha. We're in the Akatsuki's lair now." Miyuki corrected.

"Oh, right." Hirata rubbed the back of her head.

Miyuki shifted, "But that's not it, Sempei. I know we obsess over the Akatsuki and everything, but they're still bad-guys. They might do something." Admitted Miyuki, with a worried look on her face. Hirata understood, but still gave Miyuki a sympathetic smile. She went to stand in front of Miyuki, and crouched down so she could be level with Yuki-Chan's lowered head. Hirata then laughed, "What? Like rape us or something? The both of us could take care of that." It was true, both Miyuki and Hirata had martial arts training; Hirata was a 2nd degree black belt, and Miyuki a lower color (But she could easily match a black belt despite the color of her rank. **A/N ~ I don't know her belt color ^^''**) Miyuki was humored, but was worried never the less. "I know that, Sempei, but I mean, they can-, they can-" She stammered then finally concluded, "They can _kill_ us, Sempei."

"I know Yuki-Chan. But remember what you said about us practically worshiping them? Maybe they'll be stunned by the kindness that they'll keep us." Hirata reasoned.

"For what?" Miyuki asked as she looked up to see Hirata's face.

"Dunno, maids or something. They're probably tired of Konan being the only female."

"So… That's our plan? Give them sympathy and gain their respect or something or other?"

"Yep, basically." Hirata smiled.

Just then, Zetsu appeared with the rest of the Akatsuki. They looked rather muddled, each member had messy hair or their clothing was in disarray. For some reason, Deidara, Sasori, and Itachi were the only one's whose cloaks were absent. Instead they were wearing lounge-around under clothing. So the rest of the members looked the same (except that they all looked like they just finished fighting or something.) Deidara once again spoke first, "Who's responsible for Zetsu's third personality, un?! Why's he calling me _Deidei-Chan_ all of a sudden, un?!?" He emerged from the back of the crowd and stood enraged at the front. "Hey, where are they, un?" Sasori then replied annoyed, "They're by the bench, brat." Deidara looked hurt and pouted as he turned his head to face the wooden bench the two artists of many talents were crouching in front of. The whole Akatsuki looked quite confused that a couple of soaked girls were in their lair, so nobody spoke for about 5 seconds. During those five seconds, the girls' faces were lit with sheer joy while the Akatsuki's faces were concentrated in confusion, or examination. Pain, being the leader of the Akatsuki, then spoke, "You're visitors? What do you want? I suggest you make it fast, or we'll have to annihilate you." The two girls completely ignored Pain's suggestion (*cough cough*, _demand_) and stood to face the Akatsuki with starry eyes. Miyuki stared right at Deidara. He apparently noticed and said, "What's with the staring, un?" She said nothing; she walked slowly to him and stopped about 4 inches away from his face. Deidara blushed a bit, and again asked, "What, un?!" No explanation, a huge smile spread across Miyuki's face, and she hugged him. Right there, in front of the whole Akatsuki, hugged Deidara. She then exclaimed her happiness, "Oh… My… God… You're REAL!! You're not dead! You're here!! You're real!! I totally agree with you that art is a blast!!!" Hirata laughed with hysteria while the Akatsuki stared at the girl tightly hugging Deidara. Miyuki stopped hugging the red faced man and stood once again in right in front of him, practically screaming in his face. "Oh my god! You're real! Sempei! Deidara's real!! Deidei-Kun is REAL!!" She didn't seem to know how else to vent her happiness, she couldn't stop repeating her words of surprise and she started hyperventilating. Hirata stopped laughing at the blushing Deidara and saw that Miyuki was over-reacting. She walked up to her, and put a hand on her shoulder to support her. "Wow, Yuki-Chan. You don't have to do that; I think we all get the point. It's ok, Yuki-Chan, just slow down you're breathing a bit." Hirata laughed as she tried to calm her companion down, while the Akatsuki was staring again in bewilderment. Hirata finally calmed down Miyuki enough that she was only gasping a little. It was Deidara's turn to exclaim his surprise. "What… the… HELL was that un?!!?!??!?" (He was still red-faced. Come on, you liked it, Deidei-Chan~ CX)

"Never thought somebody would actually like the brat." Sasori sighed.

Hidan laughed, "Ha! You're just jealous, dumb a**."

"What're you talking about? That brat? You're with Kakuzu, God d*** it." Sasori retorted.

"If I'm with Kakuzu, then Itachi's with Kisame and Pain f**** Konan every night."

"Then it's highly likely." Sasori concluded.

Tobi obviously wasn't listening to the bickering. "Wow! Sempei gets affection!" Tobi added, "By other people who call other people Sempei?"

It was possible that Hirata's ear twitched, for she heard the voice of none other than **Tobi**. Hirata spun around, surprising the Akatsuki by her abrupt movement. "Tobi? Woah, TOBI? HERE?" She said when she faced them.

"Hai! Right here, Sem-pei?" Tobi answered, but faltered when he was trying to recall the name that was never given out of the person who questioned his whereabouts. Hirata's face showed surprise, and then said, "Oh! I forgot you didn't know our names! I'm Nozomi Hirata." Miyuki turned to face the Akatsuki too and presented them with a confident posture with her hand on her hip. "Hai, her nickname's Hira-Chan but she's my Sempei. And I'm Sohma Miyuki." Hirata completed the introduction with, "I call her Yuki-Chan." Hirata's arms crossed, Miyuki's arm on her hip, the two stood there proudly as if they had practiced that pose for this specific occasion.

Again, they stood there in awkward silence before Pain spoke. "So, what do you want?" Miyuki and Hirata were disarmed and slouched at the question. Hirata answered, "We don't really-" Miyuki cut her off, knowing Hirata's way of not thinking before she speaks would get them into trouble. "We're looking for work, you know, occupations that need to be filled?" Miyuki looked at them with a desperate face and convinced them. Hirata caught on and added, "Plus it's raining out. I'm sure your Zetsu friend here needed some watering, and he found us when we were taking a break from our job hunting." Yuki-Chan then concluded, "He said we could meet you guys, and that you had extra space." The two stood there with pleading eyes, but it was probably Yuki-Chan's that made Pain accept. "Fine, I'm not sure what Zetsu was thinking when he picked up you two, but fine. How about we go upstairs to the meeting room and sort things out." "Must've been the most sensible thing you've said all day." Kisame implied as the group walked up a series of stairs. Pain shot him a nasty glare, and Konan said, "I'd have to agree with him, nonsense spew out of your mouth constantly."

In the back, Tobi was loudly chatting with the newcomers. "So Hira-Chan and Miyu-Chan like art too?" He inquired.

Deidara overheard and was intrigued, "Really? What kind, un?"

The two infamous artists looked at each other and smiled confidently. "We draw!" They replied in unison.

Sasori entered the conversation of artists and brainless baka, (you can guess who those specific people were XP) "What do you draw?" He asked plainly.

"We like to draw Anime/Manga style people or things, I like to draw realistic looking hands sometimes." Hirata answered immediately.

"And I can draw scenery of buildings and stuff." Miyuki further explained.

Both of them nodded in completion of their look-liked rehearsed discussion. But Hirata didn't seem entirely satisfied. "Ano, Sasori-Kun… C-" But the group had finally completed their climb of about 15 flights of stairs. "We're here," Pain announced to the crowd, "Before we go in, we have to discuss the matter of how we're going to set tests for the newcomers to." Silence, of course Tobi had to break it. "How 'bout we roll a die, Leader-Sama? And we get numbers, the person's whose number shows up gets to decide." Itachi pointed out, "There's only six sides on a die, baka. There are 10 of us." Tobi almost ignored this comment, but replied, "Sempei can make us a 10 sided die out of clay~" Deidara obviously didn't want to, and showed it, but then he gave in fairly quickly. "Any objections?" Pain asked tonelessly. (He by God hoped there was.) But there was only silence; nobody knew anything else that might work any smoother. It seemed like the whole Akatsuki slumped and sighed. "Ok, let's just go in and get this over with." Pain said, then he ceased talking as all 12 of them marched into the room single file.

**The suspense~ O3O  
I bet this FanFic's gonna have a lot of chapters, 'cause they're all so small ._____.**


	5. The 10 Sided Die

**Wheew, that was tiring. See what I do for you Yuki-Chan? *3*  
Ok, Tobi's got an idea (he thinks?) and Pain decides to agree with it?!??!? (what has the world come to? o___o)**

They sat there, shifting while waiting for somebody to speak. Pain of course was at the head of the rectangular wooden table, and everyone was seated around it except for the guests, they sat next to each other at the end of the table in plain view of Pain. Pain sighed, "So what are the details to your plan, Tobi?" Tobi was only so eager to specify, "Well, first Sempei makes us a 10 sided die, n' we each get numbers 1 to 10. Whichever number of the person that rolls up will get to decide tests. That person then gets to make up tests they think will challenge them!! I think there should be ten tests, and if Hira and Miyu-Chan pass at least 7 of them, they get to join the Akatsuki! But if they fail, we get to make them our maids~" At the end of his speech, Hirata and Miyuki's eyes twitched and they looked around the table to see the other members' reactions. They could've sworn they heard Deidara, Sasori, Itachi, Kisame, and Hidan snicker with the idea of having maids. Tobi was not finished, "Oh! Oh! And if they pass, they can also each ask for one thing! If they do that, we get to make them do something for a whole day. Ya know, just to make things fun~" then the lollipop-masked baka ended his declaration. "Yes, fun indeed, un." Deidara replied with an evil grin on his face while his hand was under his chin signifying his deep, treacherous thoughts. It disturbed Miyuki and Hirata to watch him in anticipation of the possibilities. Kisame implied, "Not bad, Tobi." Tobi was pleased, "Thank chu~ Kisame-Kun~" Both Itachi and Deidara were repulsed by his reply, along with Pain. "Alright, lets see the die, Deidara." Deidara was snapped out of his annoyed staring at Tobi and followed the leader's command. He shoved his hand into his ninja bag full of clay then pulled his hand out. He held his hand flat to demonstrate his works. Hirata and Miyuki were amazed, but the rest of the Akatsuki sat there bored, for they have only seen this spectacle about a million times. Finally the mouth on his hand spat the perfect 10-sided die out and held it on its tongue for Deidara to take. "Here, un." Deidara said as he tossed the die to the leader. Pain knew better and reflected it to fall on Sasori's head. It exploded with a loud **poof** for it was miniature. Deidara laughed loudly and was enjoying himself thoroughly with his hands behind his head while he was tilting in his chair. Miyuki couldn't help but giggle along with his laughter. Sasori was p***** and the rest of the Akatsuki were not surprised. Hirata looked a bit concerned and was eyeing Miyuki with a sad frown. Sasori eventually calmed down to small grumbles and Deidara finally ceased laughing and was wiping tears of laughter away from his eyes. "Ok, un. I'll make another one." He mumbled as he noticed he was the only one laughing throughout the whole scene, except for Yuki-Chan. This die looked almost exactly like the first one, and came quicker. He started to give it to the leader, then Sasori interjected, "How do you know this one isn't gonna explode too?" Miyuki speedily answered and explained her theories. "Nah, it won't explode. For it is imperfect, as the last one was much better, it had to go with a bang, preferably on you." Sasori sat there defeated and dissatisfied. Deidara stared at Yuki-Chan with shock, but he decided not to say anything because they were wasting time and Leader-Sama was growing impatient. "Alright, I'm 1, and we'll count around the table clock-wise. Sound-off."

"2." Konan said, obviously bored.

"3, b****es." Hidan swore.

"4." Kakuzu prompted.

"5~" Tobi practically sang.

"6, un. We're all doomed, un…" Deidara muttered. He seemed as if he was disappointed for some reason.

"7." Sasori sighed.

"8." Kisame said. (It sounded more like a bark.)

"9." Itachi uttered.

"10." Zetsu said over a reasonable amount of crackling from his plant.

Then after Zetsu finished, Pain took the die, and hurled the die high into the air with his eyes fixed on the two girls across the table from him. The 10-sided die hit the ceiling, and came shooting back down, it repeated this for another time and continued with a number of bounces before it finally was on the table, spinning. It spun, slowed down, almost seemed like it froze, and fell on the destiny determining number. "…" Pain didn't want to say the number, oh hell he didn't want to say it. Hirata grew impatient as everyone sat in silence, they all saw, but her poor vision left her confused and wondering. "What's the number?" She whispered anxiously to Miyuki. She also didn't want to answer, her eyes were wide and silence was her reply. "What is it?" Hirata repeated, more urgently this time. Sasori answered her question. "It's five, Tobi's number." Hirata's eyes went wide to match Miyuki's. Tobi finally congratulated himself, "YAY!! I won! Sempei, I won!" Deidara just grumbled, rested his crossed arms on the table and slouched, then said, "I kinda noticed that, un. Besides, I made it that way, it was _supposed_ to land on five, un. And I was gonna choose that number, un…" Deidara mumbled dissatisfied. Tobi ignored this fact and continued slyly, "I know exactly what tests I'm going to make them do~" Nobody said anything. "And we can start tomorrow!"

Itachi then unearthed the trouble that arose from Tobi's remark. "Where are they going to sleep?" Itachi asked tonelessly. Konan said, "I would offer them some floor space in my room, but I'm afraid Pain might step on them if he's going to try to go through my panty drawers again." Everybody stared at Pain, who was angrily staring at Konan with hatred in his eyes and a vain mark by his head. Pain retorted, "My room is also unavailable, Konan might come in the middle of the night and try to do… Things." Kisame laughed, "Wow, that's totally _lame_, Pain." Pain averted his staring to Kisame, and hissed, "What about your room, Kisame?" Kisame laughed once more in reply. "Oh not mine, they might get scared." Pain proceeded to ask each Akatsuki member whether or not they wanted the girls; each of them had their excuses. He eventually narrowed the choices down to four people, Itachi, Sasori, Hidan, and Deidara. "How the h*** do you expect me to keep a couple of d*** little girls in my room? I told you already, H*** NO! For the love of everything that is Jashin, stop asking me the f***ing question!" Hidan was down, 3 to go.

"I simply won't. If I can't handle one little emo brother, I obviously can't tend to two little girls. Besides, the stupid one lacks hatred." Itachi droned. Hirata wasn't pleased with that last remark, so she replied; "Hating is for _children_, girly-man." Itachi just stared angrily at her as Miyuki was laughing nervously at her companion's remark in fear of disappointing her and that Itachi might say something else. There were only two people that could help them now, Hirata and Miyuki now hoped that their beloved favorite characters would also be their saviors. Miyuki looked over to Deidara with her pleading eyes on full blast while Hirata tried to look at Sasori the same way, but her eyes kept darting off to other places when she finally attempted to look Sasori in the eyes. She was almost turning pale with unease. It was a heated battle, sympathy vs. personal space endangerment, but eventually, Deidara gave in first, "Alright, un. The one who's got happiness management problems can book with me, un." He sighed in defeat. Sasori followed suit, "The stupid one can stay with me as long as she doesn't break my puppets." They knew these exceptions were insults, but the two infamous artists were extremely grateful of the other two professional ones. Their faces lit up with happiness, and it was like they had stars all around them and you could see them glittering. Pain was pleased that the problem had finally been solved and concluded, "Then I guess you two should show them to your rooms. And since they're still wet- Konan, how about you take care of that. Meeting dismissed." All of the twelve got up, and stretched out their muscles that were tensed up only moments ago. Miyuki took this chance to once again hug Deidara. "Thank you, Deidei-Kun~" she said during her quick hug. But it was long enough to make Deidara blush once more. "Uh- Uh- You're welcome, un?" Tobi gawked in amazement and exclaimed, "Wow! Maybe I should try that sometime, Sempei!" Deidara just gave Tobi a nasty glare, and said to Miyuki, "So, uh, Yuki-Chan, un. My room's full of clay, un. Uh, I hope you don't mind, un?" Miyuki blushed as Deidara did, and replied, "Um, no, I don't mind." She gave him a smile and giggled when he yelled at himself. "What the HELL did I just say, UN?!!??!?!?? I shouldn't be asking you, it's MY room, God d*** it, un!!!" He kept rambling on and started off to the door, Miyuki followed him, still giggling. Sasori and Hirata were eventually the only ones standing at the table, for they were staring at the situation that just went on between Yuki-Chan and Deidara. Hirata's gaze was fixed on the door they just left, and Sasori turned his head to face her. "You're not going to hug me too are you?" He asked, pulling Hirata's head out of the clouds and firmly back on the ground. "Uh!? Um, no! I don't know. Um, I wanted to, to thank you, but if you don't want one- um…" Sasori just stood there looking at the girl who he had sacrificed his privacy to. The results of his examination were that she was an airhead. "You can do that mumbling-thing in my room. Now let's go, the faster we get there the faster we get away from Zetsu surveillance." Hirata stopped her jittering and responded, "Oh! Uh, Hai!" She was wondering what Zetsu surveillance was. They too exited the room so that it was finally empty. Zetsu emerged half way through the ceiling of the room and was quite disappointed by the two's departure.

**Lol, Zetsu sounds like a stalker~ X)  
I know it's selfish to make Deidara do that, but I did it for Yuki-Chan~ :) [Plus it's fun~ XD]**


	6. Eventful Walks through the Hallway

**Crap, crap, and more CRAP!! D:  
Yeesh, it's finally here~ -___-''  
Well... here you go.**

Deidara and Miyuki were walking through the hallway with small tidbits of conversation about art. "So you agree with me that art is a blast, un?" Deidara had asked breaking some of the silence after he had stopped yelling at himself. "Hai! Totally, Deidara-Sama, I agree with you 100%. Except when I try to carry out the duties of a true artist and attempt to explode my drawings, it doesn't go… very… well…" Miyuki replied with one of the happiest smiles, but then she bowed her head and had purple shadows started to show up on her head and show her depression as she thought about what happens when she tries to fulfill the duties of a real artist. Deidara sensed this depression and was taken aback, how could a person be so happy at one moment, then go completely… _emo_? "What happens, un?" He asked after getting his share of the unhappiness. Miyuki's head remained down, her gaze fixed to the floor, "It… Only gets a little burnt…" She signified her belief in failure by letting out a sigh and letting her head drop to the lowest point possible. Deidara was pretty impressed by her devotion, but was amused by it at the same time. So he snickered, this made Miyuki's depression dissolve instantly and caused her to look up at him. "What?" She asked squinting her eyes at the man who ridiculed her efforts. Deidara was still facing ahead while he replied, "Nothing, un. You just get so worked up, Yuki-Chan." He smirked as he said it, plus only Deidara's hair over his 'eye' was visible to Miyuki, so she wasn't sure if he meant something else. Giving up on her search, Yuki-Chan turned her head to face ahead as Deidara's did. Her face then turned into a wicked grin. Deidara was once again startled by this sudden change of emotion, and looked in surprise at Miyuki. Her grin turned even more wicked right in front of his eyes. "Neh, Deidei-Kun~" She said with the same smirk on her face. Deidara was scared, "W-what, un?" He thought she looked scarier than Konan herself with that smirk on. "What do you do with those hands of yours?" Yuki-Chan continued as she started to faintly chuckle evilly. Deidara was terrified at this girl, "NOTHING, UN!! I just use them in combat and stuff, un. Nothing else. What did you think, un?!??!?"

"_Stuff?_" She pointed out now beaming up at Deidara with her wrathful grin.

"LIKE COMBAT AND ART, UN!!" He was now red in the face and yelling at Miyuki.

"_Like?_ What kind of combat? In bed?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, UN!!!!"

Miyuki was having a fit of laughter by now. Deidara was silenced and stared at her angrily, his plan was to wait for her giggling to stop and attack back. But she got her word in first, "And _I'm_ the one who gets worked up?" She said coolly while smirking at Deidara. He was once again caught by surprise and was blushing. "And look, you're surprised by everything I say and do. It's like you've never seen a girl before or something." She continued as the two turned a corner. "Not your kind, un…" He mumbled under his breath. "If I have a _kind_, Sempei is the same type." She replied, it came to Deidara there was another one. "Oh yeah! The stupid one! What, does she constantly surprise people with her stupidity, un?" Deidara laughed. Miyuki smirked at him, "Surprise is a thing you don't seem to get, and it's a good thing then that we both do a hell of a lot of surprising. Oh, you have no idea, Deidara-Sama." Deidara was confused but decided to shrug the remark off. The two bombers at heart then walked through half a hallway in silence before they finally reached their destination. "Well," Deidara sighed as he rested his hand on the silver doorknob that was connected to his bedroom door, "This is my place, un…" He let out an exasperated breath and opened the door for Miyuki to go in first. She grinned at him and walked in, Deidara followed. He then shut the door with a click behind them.

Sasori and Hirata meanwhile were just starting to walk through the corridors. Hirata was staring at the ground with her shoulders tensed up, concentrating hard on not to say something or do something stupid. Sasori, however, took it she was just so unbelievably clumsy that she was making sure there was nothing for her to trip over. They walked like that for a while, then Sasori finally sighed, "Geez, you seem so stupid." Silence, Hirata relaxed her shoulders a little bit then mumbled, "I'm smarter than I look…" Hirata was saddened by this remark, and frowned at Sasori. "But at least I'm not mean and heartless." She looked straight up at Sasori as she said this, which made Sasori's expression show surprise, but unlike Deidara, he didn't exaggerate it. He thought her words over in his head when Hirata once again arched her neck to gaze down at the floor. He finally spoke, "It makes you weak. Kindheartedness." This made Hirata look up sideways at Sasori, "Who says? Itachi?" Sasori looked sideways at Hirata, "I guess we share perspectives."

"If only you stop thinking there."

"Hm?"

"If you stop thinking of possibilities and outcomes there, you won't get it."

"Who says?" Sasori snapped back, narrowing his eyes.

Hirata smirked, "I say. If you appear to be nice and kind, people won't expect you to come out with a comeback of any sort. But that only depends on the person who's pulling off the trickery. If the person truly is "kind", they would never think of attacking back. But those who hide their true intentions with a different emotion surprise the victim. Even if there was a victim who thinks about the outcomes, there is a 50 to 50 chance that the person has purely good intentions or they intend on other things, so it's random, almost impossible to tell. But most of the time the "nice" cover only works for those who do have kindness." Sasori listened to Hirata's speech intently and was intrigued. "I take it back, you are smarter than you seem." He admitted turning to face forward again, "But what good is it besides being able to say that you're tricky?" Hirata then faced the red haired man, "It's the art of lying." She smiled and waited for a reply. "Intriguing… Art of a non-physical nature, who could have thought of that," Sasori said, "Besides you? Surely somebody smarter?" Hirata glared him, and prompted him an answer. "Musicians, baka. I'm one myself, same with Yuki-Chan." Sasori seemed uninterested, but asked never the less, "What kind?" "I play the flute, Yuki the violin." **A/N ~ I think… ^^'' Not sure about that either… **Hirata replied and waited for one in return, none, she finally sighed, "And I can prove it to you too. I've got an iPod full of music." Sasori seemed to ignore that too, they turned a corner before Sasori finally said, "What were you asking before? Something about 'Can I'." Hirata gave Sasori a quizzical look to show she 'didn't remember'. "You sort of said… uh, "Sasori, can I…" He was getting embarrassed. Hirata of course remembered, but took advantage of the situation. "I don't remember Sasori, can't you say the exact words? With the expressions I used?" She was trying to suppress a grin while Sasori said, "You, um… Kinda looked concerned. And you said, uh… "Ano, Sasori-Kun…" something about can…" His face was as red as his hair now, so Hirata couldn't help but laugh at him. "WHAT?!!?!?? You said it'd help you remember!" They had arrived at Sasori's door, which was right next to Deidara's, and Hirata couldn't stop laughing. "Your- face!!" She said between gasps for breath. "What about it?" Sasori spat with a frown. "Oh, nothing. This your room?" She asked after finally calming down. "Yeah," Sasori replied reluctantly thrusting his door open. "You're not getting away with this, God, you're almost as annoying as Deidara. I'm sure your friend is no less annoying." Hirata just smiled at Sasori, "We both highly depend on the element of surprise." She then walked up to him and hugged him. His face turned red and he tensed up as she buried her face in his shirt, she hugged tighter and said, "I just wanted to know if I could call you Sasori no Danna." Sasori was standing there staring down at the girl he had sacrificed his privacy to, and still thought she was an airhead. But he relaxed himself and sighed after a while of silence, "Alright… I guess…" Hirata was still hugging him as she looked up at him and replied, "Arigato, Danna." She finally let go and smiled, it was one of the smiles she rarely gave to anyone besides family and close friends, and it made Sasori smile back, what an accomplishment. Sasori stood beside the doorway to let Hirata in, she bowed and walked in, Sasori followed and shut the door with a click behind them.

**Lol that was so SELFISH~ CX  
****I tried to make the paragraphs equal in some way, so there's some repetition~  
The next chapter will be in rooms instead of hallways XD  
SURPRISE!! 8D**


	7. Bedtime

**Phew, I finished this!! 8D  
So there you have it, Yuki-Chan~  
If you find a reasonable amount of mistakes, it's your fault, I rushed... -____-''**

Konan was agitatedly marching through the hallway gripping some dry gray clothes for the new girls named "Hirata" and "Miyuki". She was normally annoyed at everything, mostly Pain, but having unexplainable mixed emotions made her highly irritable. She was glad there were now more females in the Akatsuki, she knew that even if they failed Tobi's tests, they would be the maids, so there was no chance in losing the two, but she was annoyed that the entire Akatsuki took so kindly to them, and not her. Jealousy? Or gratefulness? She didn't like it either that the males in the Akatsuki always had a voice in the deciding, she felt left out and neglected, Konan felt that she could easily pummel each and everyone of them if she dearly wanted to. This was obviously one of her normal everyday peeves. Life seems to go down in a spiral for Konan, and she thought depressingly, _I can't see why I have to trudge down to the dirty basement and fetch dry clothes for these people? I hardly now them! Plus why can't they go get them themselves? Since they were apparently going to stay there, they should familiarize themselves._ Konan just called that agitation as she started to walk through the empty hallways. She continued to stare blankly as she moped through the hallways passing her room then Pains. She turned sharply around a corner. She passed Itachi's room with Kisame's right across. As she did, she heard an odd thumping noise; she didn't want to know. She arrived in the middle of the hallway at her destination, she was pondering pointlessly on which room to go in first. Konan stood there between the two rooms blankly for a while, and was startled by the loud opening of doors. She spun around to see, and saw a bickering Kakuzu and Hidan exiting their door, they completely ignored her and started down the hallway continuing to argue. To Konan it seemed like something about money, but then the two turned right towards the bathrooms. "Mysterious…" she mumbled, she stood a little while longer, taking in the silence, and then finally decided to go into Deidara's room first.

Miyuki was previously being dazzled by Deidara's creations that littered his room, and then presented Deidara her drawing skills. All the while they were conversing about what Deidara thought about Sasori, and Hirata's bio was being explained to Deidara. "She likes a lot of sweets and plays the flute. Sempei draws better than me too." Miyuki casually said as she finished her example drawing for Deidara. "How can you get any better than that? Yuki-Chan's the best drawer I've ever seen, un! I don't think that Hirata can draw me that way, un." Deidara nodded as he complemented the picture Miyuki drew of him. "Oh, but she can Deidara-Sama." She insisted still looking over her completed drawing. That's when the door clicked opened, and Konan appeared. She stood there with the glazed over face she had in the hallway looking foggy eyed at the wall behind the two for some reason, then she noticed she had actually opened the door like she had commanded her arm to. "Oh…" She said examining the display in front of her, it seemed as if the two had already organized a space on the floor next to Deidara's bed for Miyuki to sleep, and Yuki-Chan herself was sitting on a stool with Deidara looking over her shoulder at the paper she held, they had only registered their existence when she announced, "Here's your clothes, I think you'll have different clothes in the morning and for the tests." She approached the two who stayed in there positions and looked at her. Miyuki set down the drawing and collected the bundle of gray clothes. "Arigato Konan-San." She said bowing her head. "You're welcome." Konan surprised herself when she said it; Deidara was equally taken aback. "Since when did you get so passive Konan, un?" He snickered. Konan glared at him and turned towards the door before she stared to walk towards the door, she replied coolly, "I'm not swearing at _her_ because she's not the stupid one in this room." She then marched out the door and slammed it. Miyuki then jeered, "Ooh, you just got dissed by a _girl~_" Deidara laughed and replied, "You can't be too sure of that, un. She's too scary un."

Konan heard his remark from outside the door and wanted so much just to march back in and punch him. She resisted the urge with a great amount of self-control, and realized she was practically flattening the clothes she was to give to Hirata. Konan's tolerance was just about to overflow as it bubbled dangerously close to her limit, this was because of the events that had happened previously today. She wanted to just go to bed but she could only do that peacefully when she had successfully delivered the last pair of clothes. She could only do that completely if she let her anger out. Konan set the clothes down, clenched her fist and tried to take deep breaths. Of course that didn't work, BAM! She slammed her fist on the door perpendicular to her, disturbing the Sasori and Hirata inside.

The two were just finishing up debating whether or not Hirata should sleep on the floor or on the couch that was inhabited by Sasori's puppets. "It's alright, I don't' really care. I've slept on the floor millions of times at home." Hirata told Sasori as he was pondering the possibilities and consequences. "Really Danna, you don't have to do that." She protested further as Sasori was removing his puppets to store in a dark mysterious looking closet. "Seriously, I insist you sleep on the couch, I'll be able to keep an eye on you and you won't be able to mess around with my puppets." He stated, and then he tossed the hair away from his face after he stored his spare puppet parts and looked straight at a dazed Hirata. "I also won't endanger your life if I were to take a trip to the bathroom and accidentally step on you." Sasori finished putting his hands on his hips as he examined the area. "So what was it you said about your theory on modesty?" Hirata was snapped out of her daze and sputtered, "Oh! Um, oh yeah, I said based off of Miyuki's and my other friend's reactions and behaviors after I've complemented them on something, 85% reply thank you and be modest. 5% say they're proud or something of that category, and the other 10% curiously aren't proud and attempt to return the most complement in a way. But my experiments are most likely affected because I'm only asking people I know." She finished and seated herself beside Sasori on the couch. He was taking all this in and had gotten over the fact that the stupid girl could think. Not only think but concoct genius plans if she was given the time. Hirata had previously explained to him detailed descriptions of her companion so precise he wondered exactly who these two young geniuses were. Sasori's thinking was interrupted when there was a slam on the door, this made Hirata literally jump and tense up her shoulders as her eyes widened.

Back outside, Konan was cursing Pain with every swear word she knew. But unlike Hidan, (who returned and snickered at her behind her back), Konan's vocabulary in curses was not that wide. She eventually was spitting out the same words over again, "Stupid jerk, stupid jerk, stupid jerk, stupid JERK!" Konan stomped her foot on the ground leaving a crack, and seized the clothes she had left on the floor. She then gripped the doorknob and tried to collect herself, she opened the door rather slowly, trying to look purposeful and dignified for the stunned Sasori and Hirata. She was twitching all over, then finally she let it all out, "WHAT A STUPID F****** B****!!!" She stood there heaving holding out the clothes for Hirata to take. And take she did, obviously scared, she said, "Thank you very much, Konan-Sama. Ano, would you like a candy?" Konan had stopped her teeth grinding and question Hirata. "Candy?" Hirata smiled and shoved her hand into the pocket opposite of the one that stored her iPod. Hirata held out a blue hard candy next to a paper crane in her hand for Konan to take. And take Konan did, she put the blue hard candy in her pocket. "You made that?" Konan asked after Hirata handed her the multi-colored paper crane. "Hai, it was randomly in my pocket." Hirata answered as she folded her arms around the clothes. Konan was lost for words and was amazed that a stupid little girl could make her feel better like that. Konan bowed, exited the room and shut the door with a faint click. She was still staring at the crane as she popped the blue candy into her mouth. Konan couldn't explain it, and she didn't care, she walked calmly through the hallways and arrived at her room. After she had set the crane on her dresser, she felt a serenity she had not felt for a very, very long time. Such serenity and peacefulness made Konan smile, she didn't know why, couldn't explain it, and didn't care. She just smiled.

After Konan's tantrum had been properly taken care of, everything started to move again. In Deidara's room, quite a lot was going on. "Can you leave so I can change?" Miyuki asked after they had finished 'accidentally' overhearing Konan's episode. Deidara looked at Miyuki and lifted an eyebrow skeptically, "What, un? You think I'm gonna rape you or something, un?" He laughed. Miyuki's eye started to twitch, "Oh my God, Deidara, just get out." She said horrified. Deidara of course knew why she wanted privacy, but this was still his room, God d**** it. He looked at Miyuki with a depressed eye and stated, "I don't' like being bossed around, un." Miyuki sighed and looked deep into Deidara's eyes as she changed her expression from terrified to huge, begging eyes. "Will you please leave, Deidei-Kun? For me Deidara-Sama?" She stared at him with big round puppy eyes and caught Deidara of course off guard. He also changed his expression to a sympathetic face for her gaze was just too powerful for him to stand. "Ok, un. I'll leave, un." He said as he walked towards the door after he picked up his sleeping shirt and shorts. It's almost like he was hypnotized or he wouldn't have added, "I'll go use the bathroom too, Yuki-Chan. So you won't have to leave when I have to change, un." So with that, he walked through the door way, spun around, and closed the door securely. After Miyuki was completely certain he was out of the hallway, she giggled, "I can't believe he fell for that!!" Then she broke out into a fit of laughter as she unfolded the bland gray clothes. "Oh! How thoughtful of Konan." She exclaimed when she found some under attire for girls. (*cough cough* some _undies _and stuff…) She smiled happily as she gladly took off her still wet clothes to replace with the dry ones. After she slipped on the shorts and other things, she found that the shirt was quite baggy and awfully a lot like the under shirts the male Akatsuki wore during the summer. "The sleeves are too big, the collar's too wide, yeesh, you can tell it's not proper female clothing." Miyuki mumbled as she folded her wet clothing and placed it beside her futon. She flipped her hair and preceded to examine all of Deidara's art, she assumed Deidara would be in the bathroom for a while, so she felt free to take the sculptures off their shelves and run her fingers around them. She found one she particularly liked and couldn't put it down. She kept staring at it and felt connected to it as she felt it stared at her. *Click* the door opened unexpectedly and Miyuki hurriedly tried to shove the sculpture back onto it's shelf. Deidara's head poked in and asked "You're done changing, right un?" Yuki-Chan stood there with her hands behind her back looking guiltily at Deidara and failing to conceal it for some reason. Deidara kept a blank neutral face as he opened the door and walked in to stand beside Miyuki. He examined the shelves for they were the first things he thought Miyuki would tamper with. He discovered that his first work of art was tilted and leaning against another sculpture. He picked it up abruptly, making Miyuki worry that something bad was to come. He continued to look at it with surprise until Miyuki finally mumbled, "Gomen, Deidara-Sama…" He stopped examining his work and looked down at Miyuki, "Sorry for what un? You like this, right un?" Deidara said, he then handed Miyuki the sculpture without waiting for a reply. Miyuki was surprised and wrapped her hands around the bird-like sculpture and grinned. "Arigato, Deidei-Kun~" Miyuki thanked. Deidara shrugged in reply and headed for his bed. Then strangely, he smiled, he seemed to have gotten out of the trance of over nice-ness. Miyuki guessed he washed his face really hard, his face was a tinge bit red, and his hair was also wet. "I don't really like it, un. Never liked how I put detail in the wings." He took off his shoes and tossed them into a corner, "I don't exactly prefer the eyes with a pupil either… I just like it with the whole eye black, un." He finished as he lied down on his bed and propped himself up on his arm. Miyuki went and sat on her futon they had set up, still holding the bird. "But that's what I like about it! It gives me the feel of hard work put into this and joy of completing it." Miyuki argued as she pulled the covers up just to her chin and lied on her side to face Deidara, who was still propped up on his arm. Miyuki cuddled the sculpture close to her, "Besides, it's a nice size so you can notice the features. It would be boring if you didn't put the details there." Yuki-Chan said in a soft voice as her eyes closed half way. Deidara shrugged again, and yawned, he turned off the lamp behind his bed and the room went dark.. The two started to doze off in silence before Miyuki finally mumbled, "Good night, Deidei-Kun…" She was officially now asleep after a long and eventful day. Deidara smiled and looked down at the sleeping Yuki-Chan and sighed faintly, "It wasn't that bad of a choice to have her in my room, un…" Deidara then followed suit and fell prey to sleep.

It was a few seconds after Konan had left the room, and Hirata gave Sasori a grin and thumbs up. "How the hell did you do that?" Sasori asked in bewilderment. Hirata just smirked and replied, "Surprise." Sasori sat there with an 'I knew that' face and stared at Hirata, who was still smiling clutching the clothes. Sasori suddenly felt a craving for one of those candies, "Hey, can I have one?" he abruptly asked.

"Hm…" Hirata vocalized her sound of pretend deep contemplation.

"Please~?" Sasori played along and begged. But this surprised Hirata, she'd never seen a grown man beg before. She looked at Sasori with a dazed expression, and walked up to him as she searched her pocket for more of the hard candies. She at last found a red one and handed it to Sasori, who smiled. That also astonished Hirata further. Sasori looked down at the candy as he started to unwrap the transparent plastic wrapper and popped it into his mouth and leaned against the back of the couch. "My grandmother used to buy me these, you know." Sasori stated nonchalantly. Hirata's surprise turned into pity and she felt she needed to comfort the man who was staring up at the ceiling with a blank non-caring expression. "Oh… I'm sorry, um, I've got more!" Hirata sputtered as she dug out all of the 24 candies she hid in her pocket, each in a different tasty color. Sasori glanced down at the handful of sweets and waved his hand to show he didn't want them. Hirata shrugged and stuffed them back into her pocket and crouched down to collect the ones she failed to shove into her pocket. Sasori put his hands behind his head and looked down at Hirata skeptically, "_Is this girl really a genius or just an idiot like she appears to be? Why can't she make things clear?" _ Sasori thought as Hirata successfully placed each colored candy into her pocket. She smiled at him and he decided to return it, catching Hirata once again off guard. Sasori snickered and thought, "_Oh right, surprise._" Hirata then started to shift from foot to foot, "Ano, Danna? Can you leave? I gotta change, you know. It's been pretty uncomfortable in these wet clothes all day for Miyuki and me." Sasori raised his eyebrows, and it struck him, "_Oh my God, that's right! She's a girl_!" So his face turned red and he hurriedly got off the couch and marched towards the door, picking up his nightclothes on the way. "There's an extra blanket on my bed, and you can use the second pillow too." He bowed and shut the door with surprising speed. Hirata raised her eyebrow and shrugged. She started to unfold the bundle of clothes and like Miyuki, was grateful to find some lady's under clothing inside. Hirata stripped off her wet clothes and wrung them out, each article having about a drop of water that escaped it; she threw those on the floor next to the couch. Hirata put on the dry underclothing, took the gray shirt and held it up in front of her, she found it was way too big, obviously men's clothes. She hoped that it didn't _smell_ like them too. She shivered and slipped on the sleeveless shirt. Hirata was horrified to find that the armholes for the arms were enormous, they ended right under her ribs, allowing anyone a view of the lent bra whether she wanted them to or not. She tried to ignore that, "Maybe the pants will be big enough so I can pull them up to my armpits and still have them cover my legs." Hirata mumbled as a sweat drop appeared on her head and purple swirls were all around her. She searched for the pair of pants, and didn't find them. Absolute depression and agony was what overcame her as Hirata slumped on the couch. "At least the shirt's big enough to cover my a**." She sighed as she went into despair. Hirata decided just to ignore the fact she was pant-less and tell Sasori she was wearing a skirt. She retrieved the blanket and pillow and started setting up her 'bed' when Sasori came in. He didn't wait was Deidara did, but barged straight in. "You're done, right?" He asked blandly. Hirata went red faced and tensed up her shoulders the most she had throughout the entire day, she was petrified and trying not to speed out the door. Sasori was puzzled and questioned, "What's the matter? It's like you've seen one of my puppets come to life or something." Sasori said this and examined Hirata, who was turning a lovely shade of red by now. Noticed she was only wearing an incredibly oversized shirt that could pass as a nightgown for her. He also turned a bit red, "Um… So… Uh… Konan forgot to give you… Pants?" Sasori said looking left at the ground as to not disturb Hirata. She didn't say anything but just gave him a frightened nod. Sasori walked over to his closet and rummaged through it until he found the smallest pair of shorts he owned. He didn't look; just thrust them towards Hirata for her to take. She gladly snatched them and slipped them on. She finally said, "Phew, arigato Danna." She said and gave Sasori a relieved expression as he turned around. "Uh… You're welcome…" He said still looking away from Hirata. She gave him a puzzled look, "You don't' have to look away Sasori-Kun, I'm decent now" she explained as she laughed. Sasori was now the only one red faced and gave in. Hirata gazed up at Sasori and smiled happily like a little child would. Sasori looked over Hirata and finally muttered, "That candy was good… Reminded me of the kind I used to have when I was a kid." Hirata stopped smiling at this, and gave Sasori a sympathetic gaze. Sasori was troubled by this and continued, "No, don't stop smiling. It reminds me of how I used to smile when I was a kid…" Sasori then averted his gaze to the left, leaving himself open to Hirata's sneak attack. She hugged him again and kept smiling as her Danna had told her to. She started to let go before Sasori returned the hug. "Thanks…" He mumbled into her shoulder. Hirata closed her eyes in this friendly gesture and whispered, "You really are the lonely and companionless guy the anime says you are…" He ignored this and finally let go after he had felt comforted. Hirata smiled at him, Sasori returned a sad smile. Sasori then strode off to his bed and lied down looking up at the ceiling. Hirata went over to the prepared couch and like Miyuki, pulled the covers up to her chin and faced Sasori. Hirata curled up into a secured ball and mumbled "Goodnight, Sasori no Danna." Sasori flipped the switch by his bed and mumbled in reply. He fell asleep first leaving Hirata to softly sing herself to sleep with her favorite song.

Tobi was meanwhile calculating plans for the next day for the two new girls.

**I am now matched to Miyuki with the number of hugs I have given!! :D  
I hope you enjoyed it, I'll be updating soon!!**


	8. Today is 'Special'

**It is HERE~!! ^w^ Hm... This is pretty long too...  
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR GUY'S SUPPORT.  
Without you guys, I wouldn't have gotten past the introduction. TwT  
Btw, get better Yuki-Chan!!!**

...Tobi was the first to wake the next morning...

"GOOD MORNING EVERYONE~!!! LEADER-SAMA, KONAN-SAN, SEMPEI, SASORI-SAN, ZETSU-SAN, ITACHI-SAN, KISAME-SAN, KAKUZU-SAN, HIDAN-SAN!!!" Tobi screamed at exactly 7 o'clock in the morning. He shot through the hallways alerting the entire Akatsuki that he was awake; but of course that was unnecessary, they knew he was awake when he slammed open his door. Tobi continued the ruckus by racing down the corridors and smashing his fist on every door of each Akatsuki member and yelling, "GOOD MORNING! TODAY IS VERY SPECIAL!!" He proceeded to wake everyone up in the same noisy fashion, who started to slug out of their rooms with their hair and clothes messy. Hidan answered Tobi's wake up call by opening the door with his scythe in his hand and rubbing his eye with the other. He had strands of hair sticking out of place as he yelled, "Oh, for the love of everything that is beloved Lord Jashin!! SHUT THE F*** UP! Do you really have to do that you dip sh***?!!??!?!?" Tobi ignored him as the rest of the Akatsuki opened their doors to see what the yelling was about. They already knew, but decided to come out of slumber anyway. When Tobi arrived at Deidara and Sasori's rooms, he stopped and took in a deep breath. During this pause, the rest of the Akatsuki was already awake and staring hopelessly at the dim wit that was about to cause more destruction.

Hirata was still sleeping soundly while Sasori was sitting on the floor fixing up his puppets when Tobi barged into the room. "Ohaiyo, Hira-Chan, Sasori-San!!" Sasori just glared sideways at Tobi and continued to fiddle with the wrist of one of his puppets. Hirata, though, was shot out of her peaceful slumber when Tobi made his greeting. She was extremely startled and fell out of the couch she was resting in, and landed hard on her butt. Tobi looked over to where Hirata had fallen and smiled expectantly. (You can just tell he smiled even under his mask, ok?) Hirata was rubbing her now sore butt and was groggily looking around to remind herself where she was. She eventually noticed Tobi staring happily at her and realized the situation. "Oh! O-Ohaiyo, Tobi" Hirata stuttered while rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment of being on the floor. She turned her head to greet Sasori with the same smile, and then she yawned. "Aw, Hira-Chan's so cute when she wakes up! Her hair's all messy and her baggy clothes make her look like a little tiny kid! Don't you agree Sasori-San?" Tobi commented when Hirata was rubbing her eyes; Then Tobi looked over at Sasori and waited for a reply. Sasori glared at him more, and his cheeks turned a little pink when he replied, "Yeah, whatever baka. It's too early in the morning to try and get everyone hyped up." Tobi's response was just a head tilt as if he didn't know what Sasori meant, so he continued to Hirata, "I bet Miyu-Chan looks just as cute! By the way Hira-Chan, today I'm gonna explain the tests to you two~!! So I should go to wake Sempei and Miyu-Chan up now!" Sasori retorted, "As if they're not already awake from your boisterousness." Again Tobi gave Sasori another head tilt, "Why are you using so big words, Sasori-San?" Sasori sighed and didn't bother to explain, he went back to examining his puppets. Hirata and Tobi watched him do so in a quite business-like fashion; Hirata sweat-dropped and decided to explain to Tobi for he was still staring at Sasori as if waiting for a reply. "It means you were loud, Tobi. And I assume you do this everyday?"

"Oh! I see~ No, I only do this on very special days~" Tobi explained.

"Then to him everyday is special." Sasori mumbled keeping his eyes on the neck joints of one of his other puppets.

"Then I guess everyone's used to it." Hirata yawned as she stretched.

"Not Deidara. He's got this disability of not being able to get used to stuff and being able to tolerate annoying people and things." Sasori joked as he went on to tighten a screw in his puppet's knee joint.

"Huh?" Hirata said taking his joke seriously. Sasori just sighed and continued his repairing, then Hirata caught on; so she reached over to her folded pants' pocket and pulled out a green candy and popped it into her mouth. Tobi stared with great interest as Hirata stood up to stretch some more. "Can Tobi have a candy? Tobi is a good boy~!" He asked. Hirata looked sideways over to Tobi and exclaimed, "Oh! Yeah, sure, but only if you wake Deidei-Chan and Yuki-Chan up quietly." Hirata replied as she retrieved an orange candy and held it in front of Tobi. Tobi nodded impatiently and took the candy. He unwrapped the candy first with loud crinkling noises, it made Hirata and Sasori look intensely at what he was about to do, or made them curious about what was under his mask. "Itadakimasu~" Tobi sang as he slowly lifted the mask from his face. Right before his face was visible to Sasori and Hirata, he turned around towards the door and plopped the candy in his mouth. "Arigato, Hira-Chan~" He thanked, still not facing the other two; and with that, he slammed the door shut and marched to the other room. Sasori looked at Hirata who was still staring at the door, "You didn't have to do that you know, there's no way he's going to 'wake them up' quietly." Hirata let out and exasperated sigh and let her head fall signifying her despair and hoped Tobi wouldn't get a sugar rush.

"OHAIYO SEMP-" Tobi started as he opened the door to Deidara's room. But there he met a fist in the face and fell on the floor on his bum. Deidara emerged out of the slightly opened door annoyed, "God Tobi, we were awake even before you opened your mouth, un."

"Waaaa~ Sempei! I just wanted to say good morning to Miyu-Chan~!!" Tobi whined as he got up. Deidara growled as he opened the door a bit wider so Tobi could come in without running. Tobi thanked him while Deidara just stared at him as he skipped through the door. He found Miyuki sitting cross-legged on her futon drawing something with the clay sculpture Deidara had given her next to her; she looked up at him after hearing that he had been permitted into the room. Tobi asked, "What are you drawing Miyu-Chan~? Something pretty?" Deidara's expression turned depressed and Miyuki snorted. "If you call Deidara pretty." She said as she turned the picture around for Tobi to see. He came up close to the picture and examined it, he then concluded, "That's very pretty, Miyu-Chan~" Deidara grabbed Tobi's collar and growled in his face, "You want to take this outside, un?" He kept spewing out other threats as he shook Tobi senseless. Miyuki sat there and snickered at the two grown men fighting and finally said, "Hey Deidara-Sama, why don't you let Tobi say what he wanted to say?"

"That's because I don't want to hear what he wants to say, un." Deidara retorted. "Besides un, he'll just say more stupid things, even if he doesn't mean it." Miyuki smiled and was amused that even though they were grown men, they were still as immature as 7 year olds. She ended up giggling and yawned as she stretched out her arms and leaned backwards, falling on her pillow while she grabbed Deidara's sculpture to hug.

"Aw~ I was right! Miyu-Chan's just as cute as Hira-Chan~" Tobi cooed. Deidara looked annoyed and was staring at him with an eyebrow raised. Miyuki just giggled, "Thank you, Tobi. What was it you wanted to say?" Miyuki asked, still lying down. Tobi raised his hands above his head signifying he just remembered, "Oh! Yeah! Miyu-Chan, today's very special and Hira-Chan knows too! You want to know why it's special?" He said, he didn't wait for an answer before he continued, "It's because today you're gonna learn about your tests!! And things will be more organized, I spent all night working on plans, yes!!" Tobi was jumping up and down by now, with Deidara still glaring sideways at him and frowning. Miyuki sat up and replied, "Good job, Tobi. How about you go tell Pain your plans so it's even more organized?" Deidara intervened, "First off, he probably didn't even _think_ about making plans; second, if he _did_ make plans, they are most definitely _not_ organized, un. 'Cause since when does Tobi do things that end up working, un?" Tobi whined, "Waaaa~ Sempei, that's mean!"

After listening to Deidara's speech, Miyuki stood up to face the two and sighed, "Just go tell Pain, your d*** plans. Whether they're good or not." Tobi obeyed and marched out the door humming happily as if Miyuki just hadn't been annoyed by him a second ago. He turned around and said "Hope you're excited~!!" before closing the door and leaving Deidara and Miyuki to slump and sigh at the hopelessness of the orange lollipop masked baka.

Back in Sasori's room, Sasori was showing Hirata the hidden parts in his puppets. "And this part has a knife in it, nobody expects a knife there on a puppet." He said holding the weapon compartment so Hirata could see. "You're right, nobody does. No one expects a knife in some puppet's a**," She laughed. "To me, you can seem to hide some weapon or poison anywhere on these things." Sasori looked at Hirata and smiled, "Sure you can, it's easy, only an idiot would realize that just now." He snickered. Hirata just squinted her eyes at Sasori and frowned, then she said, "Hey, nobody expects something in the eyes, you got something there?" Sasori examined the beady eyes of his puppet and confirmed, "You're right… Nah, I don't have anything there… Yet." Hirata smiled and let out a short laugh declaring her victory, then her eyes became interested in a part of the puppet they were examining, she stretched out her arm and pressed a miniature button at the very top of the puppet's head.

Something clicked inside the puppet, and it started to make a whirring sound combined with the sound of cranking gears with more clicks. Hirata tried to remove her finger, and when she did there was a nearly invisible strand of gray string-like material connecting her finger to the puppet. She tugged her hand away from the puppet and it nudged forward when she did, then she yanked her hand away from it, bringing the puppet forward, "Woah!" Hirata exclaimed before she fell backwards with the puppet falling on top of her with a big thud, making Sasori wince. The puppet was much larger than Hirata, so she was flattened by it and the only thing visible of her was her hand that still had the gray string-ish thing still on her pointer finger. "My god, I didn't know you would notice that! But how can you be stupid enough to press it?" Sasori scolded looking at the wreckage from above. He heard Hirata let out a muffled groan from under the massive puppet; Sasori just looked at the situation and shook his head hopelessly. "I'm assuming you want that off of you, and why the hell that just happened?" He sighed, and then he heard another muffled sound that told him she agreed. So he took the puppet by the waist, and pulled it off Hirata so she was visible. She was lying on the floor with X eyes, her arm was raised and her finger was pointing up to the head of the puppet Sasori suspended in the air. Sasori studied curiously at this, the connection was supposed to be gone by now, "Hey, get up." Sasori demanded still eying the gray connection between Hirata's finger and the head of his puppet. Hirata mumbled and got up, her finger still suspended towards the puppet, this made Sasori wonder… He moved the puppet to the right, Hirata's finger followed; he moved the puppet to the left, Hirata's finger followed. Sasori removed the puppet's head and dropped it on the ground, Hirata's finger followed. "Curious…" Sasori mumbled as he picked up the detached puppet head. "Danna? What're you going to do?" Hirata asked worriedly as Sasori was holding the puppet head as if aiming for something. "You'll see." He replied, his expression blank still focusing on a target. "There we go." He mumbled when he found a nice clear spot on a wall. Hirata's expression went worried as she whimpered and braced herself for something bad to happen. Sasori launched the head of the puppet into the wall and Hirata followed, finger forward and flying across the room with dark purple lines and swirls surrounding her; then she crashed into the wall and crumbled on the floor once the puppet head fell.

Hirata was still whimpering in a lump when Sasori walked over amused, she by God hoped he had an explanation for his actions and why this was all happening. He laughed at her muddled figure and said, "How about you get up?" Hirata protested by rolling away from the wall and laying flat next to Sasori's bed. "Guess not…" He mumbled, walking over to sit on the edge of his bed; he sat right over Hirata and frowned down at her. "Why'd you do that Danna?" Hirata grumbled as she stared up at Sasori with squinted eyes. He just kicked her in her side, because his foot was there, and caused Hirata to let out a squeak of pain while she curled up to protect the rest of herself from getting hurt. She stared up at him with scrutinizing eyes and he just laughed out once more, "You see… I didn't make that puppet. I found it when I was younger and I still don't know why that button's there." Sasori admitted and Hirata's eyes went worried. "I got stuck to it once, but I got it off because I know how to handle a puppet. You got stuck to it, and I can't help you; you have to get it off yourself, and you can only do that if you know how to work puppets like these," Sasori continued, "I'm not sure if you can learn though. I'm assuming that's your chakara connecting you and the puppet, but it's so dim, and it's _gray_. There might be something about that that will keep you from learning." Hirata was sitting up by now, and was listening eagerly to Sasori's out-loud contemplation, she wasn't sure if it was entirely directed to her or not. "Then again… I'm not sure if I even _want_ to teach you. It might be fun to see what you do with that puppet head connected to you." Sasori jeered, making Hirata frown even more at him. Finally, Hirata sighed, "Why don't you just get somebody who knows more about puppets than you to fix this problem, eh?" Sasori was insulted, "Nobody knows more about my puppets than me!" He declared as vain mark appeared on his head. Hirata smirked and said coolly, "Then why don't you fix this? I bet the color or the brightness doesn't effect the ability or whatever of the chakara." Sasori glared at Hirata and reluctantly kneeled by where she sat and took her finger in one hand and held the puppet head in the other. He sat there thinking about what to do.

Deidara and Miyuki were just once again discussing his sculptures. "So you used to have to make them all by hand? Your hands wouldn't just spit out perfect sculptures?" Miyuki asked hugging her sculpture. "Right, un. It was a real pain. But that was a looooong time ago, un." Deidara replied sitting on a stool with the bottoms of his feet touching and his elbows resting on his knees, his hands were hanging in front of his feet. He added, "If I didn't join the Akatsuki, I would have stayed really weak. That would've been bad." He was enjoying his chat with Miyuki; he hadn't talked this long and this happily since an eternity ago. Deidara leaned towards Miyuki on his stool and asked, "So how did you start with your drawings, un?" Miyuki was sitting cross-legged on a padded miniature couch that was perfect for contemplating deep thoughts in; it almost helped her remember her very first experiences with different things. She explained to Deidara almost the entire history of her drawing hobby. "I started out drawing realistic things, like people and flowers and stuff. But then I converted." Deidara tilted his head questioning what Miyuki meant by 'converted'. Yuki-Chan clarified, "I changed from drawing realistic things to drawing anime/manga style art. I can remember the day Sempei noticed I had ordered a Shonen Jump magazine; she said something about how there were lots of people who didn't like that anime stuff, but she said you can find them in rare places, and she confessed she was an anime lover herself. I knew her before, but it was like the first day I met her real self. And I was so happy when I found someone else in that dump of a class who appreciated the Japanese cartooning art like I did." Miyuki stated proudly, then she sighed, "It's not everyday you find a person who's almost exactly like you." Miyuki had tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling with a smile, waiting for a reply from Deidara, but there was only silence. She averted her gaze on to his lowered head, he seemed to be almost sulking in a way, or was that shyness? "You know…" Deidara finally mumbled, "You're right, un. It isn't everyday, and today's my first, un. Never have I known anyone who has agreed with me so much and really sincerely liked me as an artist, un." His head was still lowered, so he didn't see Miyuki smile and take that comment to heart, but he raised his head when he heard her giggle. "I like you more than that, Deidara-Sama." Even though she said it with cute confidence, she still blushed, a lot too. Suddenly, Deidara abruptly rose off his stool and stood in front of Miyuki, he put his hands on her arms near her shoulders and bent down to meet with her gaze. They gazed at each other for a while; Deidara was smiling as well as Yuki-Chan. She was still blushing though because Deidara was only a few inches away from her face.

Then she felt something wet and cold on her arm. Her eyes widened at the thought of what was on her arm, and startled Deidara with the sudden change of expression. He finally noticed the mouths on his hands were licking the side of her arms. He pulled his hands away from Miyuki as if he had been shocked, then he stammered backwards and started sputtering, "Oh my God!! Gomen, gomen, they've never done anything involuntary before, un!!" The mouths on his hands were still open and seemed to be smiling as they continued to move their tongues about. Miyuki was equally shocked and started, "I-It's ok, Deidara-Sama, really it's-" She stopped for she had heard a rather loud gurgling noise. Deidara held his hands palms up in front of him and was staring intently down at his hands to see why they were acting so strangely, and in the silence, his right hand said, "Hmmm, that was a tasty, come on, can't I lick her some more, hmmm?" There was no mistaking it, both Miyuki and Deidara had heard his right hand's bizarre request, and were still staring in shock when the left hand spoke, "Yeah, we haven't tasted anything other than clay since in forever, yeah." Miyuki was gawking at this amazing feat, "My GOD!! Your hands can TALK??!?!!??" She asked in amazement, seeming to ignore the absurd meanings of the hand's questions. Deidara was staring amazed at the phenomenon; then he went berserk, He started flailing his arms everywhere as Tobi would and exclaimed, "I never knew they could talk, un!! I thought they were just mouths!! I didn't know they even had vocal chords, un!!"

"Hmmm, well guess you just learned something knew today, hmmm." His right hand said.

"Yeah, what's so bad about having voices, yeah?" The left hand asked.

"There's nothing bad, un. Just why didn't you talk earlier?" Deidara asked either one of his hands.

"Hmmm, the clay's been too bland, it's not tasty God d*** it, hmmm." Deidara's right hand answered.

It was amusing to see a man conversing with his own hands, so Miyuki laughed and couldn't stop. She held her stomach because the hilarity was too much for her to handle; she ended up falling out of her chair and rolling on the floor. Deidara turned his head to look at Yuki-Chan, and his wrists ended up turning involuntarily so his hands could 'see' what was going on. This once again made Deidara exclaim, "OH MY GOD UN!!! WHAT THE F*** HAS GOTTEN INTO MY HANDS?!!??!!?!!??!?" Miyuki kept laughing and clutching her stomach, eventually she was on her knees rubbing away tears of laughter and asked a very reasonable question, "Hey, how can your hands hear me? And how come they don't say 'un' like you do?" Deidara stared at his hands expectantly and waited for an answer. The right hand replied, "Hmmm, we hear through Deidara. We see through Deidara too, but we only 'see' if we're facing the thing we want to see. We can move by ourselves too, but it's really tiring, most of the time we just let Deidara handle the moving, hmmm." The left hand added, "Yeah, and we don't say 'un' because it's annoying, yeah. I say 'yeah' and Migi says 'hmmm', yeah." Miyuki went over to look down at the hands with Deidara, "Now you guys have names, un?!!?" Deidara asked, obviously confused. "Hmmm, why wouldn't we? I'm Migi, the right hand, and he's Midari, the left hand, hmmm." Migi answered. Miyuki and Deidara were standing around Migi and Midari as they conversed further about the mysteries of the two of them.

All of a sudden, a voice was heard throughout the entire Akatsuki lair, it was the voice of Tobi. "GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE!! Now that you're all awake, I want to tell you to come down to the meeting room to discuss more about the tests for Miyu-Chan and Hira-Chan. Maybe you guys should get changed first, Konan, if you're listening, get them some smaller clothes if there are any-" Tobi's voice was cut off and in the background you could hear Konan punching Tobi in the head and yelling at him to "Shut the f*** up," and that "I know what to do." Then Tobi's voice came back in the same cheery voice for some reason and continued, "Yeah, so, see you there!!" There was a crackle then a blip, and then Tobi's voice was no longer heard ringing loudly throughout the hide out. "I never knew we had an intercom…" Pain mumbled while he walked through the hallways towards the bathroom. "And since when did Tobi start taking charge?" He sighed. "Well, at a level, today is kind of 'special'."

**Special-ness is special~ O3O  
You know, I bet most of you are wondering why I titled this "Would You Like To Buy Some Akatsuki Cookies"....  
Well, you'll see!! Kukukukuku~ *w***


	9. Pointless Preparation

**I was thinking about naming this chapter Deja Vu, but I decided against it.**  
**I think I'm making Konan seem to soft, she would never do something as pointless as that over again XD**

Konan had to face the same thing all over again. "Ugh… Déjà Vu…" She mumbled as she rushed through the hallways to once again deliver clothes to the new girls. This time, they weren't bland; Konan had gathered some unique outfits she had discovered deep within her dresser to give away (they didn't fit her). She had no time to waste and wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, and as painlessly as possible. What irony, she bumped into Pain as she sharply turned a corner. She stood there frustrated and quite annoyed at the man who was still walking leisurely throughout the hallways in his pajamas, which where red and had kunais and other miscellaneous weapons littered on it. Pain had no time to react before Konan had kicked him in a very sensitive part and sped away, leaving him to fall on his knees and grumble in pain (Pain, pain~ more irony CX). As he sat there clutching the spot he'd been kicked, he looked back to the direction Konan sped off and cursed her name. Zetsu appeared from the floor right in front of Pain and laughed at his crippled state. "What? It'd hurt you too." Pain snarled with one eye open. Zetsu laughed once more and coolly replied, "I'm smart enough to stay out of her way." And before Pain could retort back, Zetsu once again disappeared through the floor and continued to laugh.

Back with Konan, she had officially trampled all the other members of the Akatsuki, except for Tobi, Deidara, and Sasori, who were safely in their rooms, until Konan would decide to mow them down too. But after she had left the hallway full of injured bodies of Hidan, Kakuzu, Itachi and Kisame, she arrived again in between the two doors of Deidara and Sasori. She took a deep breath, and announced, "DEIDARA, SASORI, HIRATA, MIYUKI. REPORT OUTSIDE YOUR ROOMS AT ONCE." Her sonic boom had startled the Akatsuki, making them all cover their ears as if they had heard nails on a chalkboard at the volume Konan was screeching, but this made the summoned four march out of their room obediently. They all filed out as if they were in the military, Hirata literally snapped to attention and saluted to Konan, embarrassing the others. Konan just curiously looked at the puppet head that was on her finger and inspected the others, nothing much different, Miyuki and Deidara looked as if they just discovered something very important, and Sasori looked distressed as if he was attempting to solve a complex conundrum. After observing the display in front of her, she decided to take advantage of this obedience and commanded, "As you already have obviously heard, today is your testing day," Konan straightened up and put her hands behind her back in an officer sort of fashion, "I want you to do well because if you fail you'll become our maids. I only care for the physical state of your well being, nothing more. Besides, it'd be a shame to have two vessels like you to go to waste." She sighed and continued, "So, I have these clothes for you, and after you have changed, come down to the meeting room, it's where we first were when we were trying to figure out what to do with you." Konan handed Miyuki and Hirata the two piles of clothing and finished, "I'm sure Tobi's got some _excellent_ tests for you." She nodded sarcastically and motioned for Deidara and Sasori to follow her. They did, leaving the two girls in front of the doors contemplating the situation.

Hirata was still staring after the three that left, when Miyuki too noticed the puppet head still attached to her pointer finger. "Hey, what's that Sempei?" She asked quizzically pointing at the puppet head dangling off her finger. Hirata jumped up and was snapped out of her daze, "Huh? What? Oh, this," She said as she fumbled to lift the puppet head by tugging the chakara string and catching it in mid-air. "I pressed a button on one of Sasori's puppets and it got stuck to me." She sighed, and then she looked at Miyuki's face. "Hey, why are you so pale? Looks like you've just seen something scaring or something." Hirata asked, putting a hand to her forehead. "You're temperature's normal." Miyuki sighed and said, "Sempei, you only check the person's temperature if their face is red. Oh, and about seeing something scaring, Deidara-Sama and I've figured out something completely _absurd!_" Hirata looked at Miyuki impatiently with wide eyes, "What, Yuki-Chan?"

"Well, Deidara's hands…" Miyuki started slowly.

"What?" Hirata said more impatiently.

"They can…"

"Come on, spit it out!!"  
"They can TALK!!" Miyuki finished excitedly, "And he never knew that!!"

"My God… REALLY?" Hirata asked also getting hyped up.

"Yep!" Miyuki said, nodding.

Konan came back down the hallway hearing them chattering. She needn't go any farther than half way down the hallway; they already sped into their rooms and started to change.

Back with the Akatsuki, they had all gathered and were chattering loudly about what was about to happen. "So what'd ya think Tobi's gonna make them do, eh, Itachi?" Kisame asked his partner. Itachi just sighed and blandly replied, "Dunno, something stupid obviously." Kisame was displeased by the lack of participation and decided to ask Deidara, "What 'bout you, Deidara?" Deidara lifted his gaze from his silent hands and replied, "Oh, un… Um… Well… I got nothing, un…" Deidara said returning his wide-eyed stare to his hands. Kisame was once again displeased, so he decided to ask Sasori, who replied with his expression concentrated, "Maybe I could try to destroy the puppet head and…" He mumbled leaving Kisame confused and annoyed. So Kisame leaned back in his chair and sighed at the ceiling. "What does it take to get a decent answer around here?" He mumbled while tipping back in his chair. Zetsu passed to sit in his chair, and 'accidentally' tipped Kisame's chair back so he fell onto the floor. "Hey!" Kisame exclaimed, clenching his hand into a fist at Zetsu. "What the hell was that for, you-" He started, but he was silenced by the loud creaking open of the door leading to the meeting room.

There appeared Miyuki and Hirata, in now their new outfits. Miyuki was dressed in a various assortments of red and black. She was equipped with a netted top with sleeves that went to her elbows; she wore a shirt of black over it. The shirt was baggy but small; it didn't cover her stomach and had very short sleeves. Miyuki had a red sash around her middle, followed by a black skirt that fell slightly above her fingertips when she extended her arms beside her; she wore netted shorts under that. Her red socks seemed to have dried, for she was wearing them and they were visible above a pair of black sandals. Miyuki stood in front of the doors staring back at the Akatsuki with a vacant stare, a flustered Hirata next to her. Hirata was clad in dark green and gray, she too wore a netted shirt, but the sleeves of hers ended right under her shoulders. She wore a dark pale green shirt that had a collar that went straight across from shoulder to shoulder parallel to her armpits, the rest from under her neck to the straight collar of her shirt covered by the black netting. The sleeves of the shirt ended in the middle of her arm between her shoulder and elbow. On her left arm she wore a gray bracelet above her elbow, and on her right she wore another under the sleeve of her shirt. Hirata was wearing a pair of black shorts, which had netting that went to Hirata's knees under it. If you wanted to see what feet apparel she had been equipped with, you would find none, Konan had yet again forgotten a piece of attire for Hirata. So Hirata wore no socks or shoes, as she stood flustered next to Miyuki in front of the Akatsuki with her small bare feet visible. Finally Tobi announced, "Ok everybody! Let Hira and Miyu-Chan sit! And oh, Leader-Sama, can I sit at the head of the table across from them?" Everybody stopped gawking at the two girls in the doorway and started shuffling themselves in their seats to find a comfortable sitting posture. Miyuki started towards the chairs they were to be seated in, and Hirata followed behind, they sat down in the same seat they did the previous night, but this time they were facing an extremely exited Tobi. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Tobi started to announce his diabolical plan, "Ok everybody, I have here the ten tests for Hira and Miyu-Chan." He said as he waved two copies of paper with scrawled writing on it, he started to pass around the information around the table to get to the two girls, then he noted, "And don't show it the rest of the members, it's a surprise~" And with that the papers were passed over to the two girls. As they looked over the plans, Miyuki noted, "You spelled everybody's name wrong …" She mumbled, not expecting a reply. "But remarkably he spelled everything else right…" Hirata stated, also not expecting or wanting a reply. So they sat there, absorbing the information from the paper in silence while the rest of the Akatsuki waited. Finally Tobi explained, "So we'll start this afternoon after lunch! Now you gotta prepare, like physically and mentally and stuff. We'll all eat lunch together today!!" At that, Hirata lifted their eyes off the paper while keeping her face low pointed towards the paper, Hirata asked Tobi, "Who's gonna cook? 'Cause I don't want to eat food made by a person who could possibly _poison_ the food." Miyuki chuckled when Hirata glared at Sasori, causing him to turn red. So Sasori retorted, "Then why don't _you_ cook then, oh great Hirata?" he added sarcastically, "I'm _so_ looking forward to it." Hirata just laughed and smirked, "Of course I will, just point me in the direction of the kitchen, and I'll set to work. But it'd be so much easier if _someone_ could figure out to get this puppet head of my finger." She sneered, smirking evilly at Sasori who had turned as red as his hair again. Itachi raised his eyebrow at a confident looking Hirata, "So the stupid one can cook?" Hirata averted her smile to Itachi and folded her arms, "A bit, better than you I bet. If you keep calling me stupid, I might just _accidentally_ drop some glass shards in your food." She laughed, and then she turned her head to look at Pain, "Well, do I have permission?" She asked her smirk turning into a normal friendly smile. Pain just nodded and turned his head to Konan, then he commanded, "Show her the kitchen Konan, I'm sure she'll get a kick out of it." With that, Konan nodded and smiled evilly, making Hirata immensely worried. "Well then, glad we have someone else to cook for us now. Maybe you'll know how to work the oven." Konan said as she rose from her seat, Hirata followed suite and folded the paper of tests on it and shoved it into her shorts pocket. Konan fetched her and they marched out the door.

Miyuki sat there studying the tests once more and memorized them, she ignored the rest of the Akatsuki who were staring at the door in great surprise; they felt pity for Hirata's daring move. Hidan then mumbled, "Wonder if that b**** can actually cook…" He laughed and tilted back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head, "Ha! Let's see what she does." Hidan laughed, searching the table for anyone else who might be amused by the possibilities. Itachi was had his head down with his eyes closed in pity, then he smirked, "This'll be interesting." He mused. Tobi decided to join in the conversation and cheerily said, "I bet Hira-Chan is a great cook~" Deidara snapped back and laughed, "Bet not, she probably can burn water, un." As he was laughing, Miyuki quietly added to the conversation, keeping her eyes o the paper, "You'd be surprised, Deidei-Kun, Sempei's made some god cookies before. But you still should be careful, she might just _accidentally_ slip those glass shards into your meal too." The rest of the Akatsuki just looked at Miyuki quizzically why she continued examining over and over the tests set out for herself and her companion. Tobi figured she was about done after a few more seconds, "Well, seems like you know what you're going to do if you're studying the paper that much, no need for preparation then!" he said. Miyuki just folded the paper as Hirata did and shoved it into her pocket; she looked confidently at Tobi as she did. "Yep, let's just eat lunch and get straight to it. Oh, would you mind giving me time to explain to Sempei my plan?" Miyuki confirmed, broadcasting to everybody that she was more than ready for the tests. Tobi just continued happily, "Wow, Miyu-Chan, you're fast! Sure, you have until lunch time and after it until you're ready~" Then Miyuki rose out of her seat startling the rest of the Akatsuki, "Arigato, now please excuse me, I have to make sure Sempei doesn't find any matches to burn the lair down with." She turned abruptly and walked out the door, leaving the rest of the members wondering why she was so confident, possibly a little bit _overly_ confident. But who knew for sure?

Miyuki continued down the hallway in search of the kitchen, she forgot to ask it's whereabouts. But she didn't wander for long; she smelt a faint smell of something burning. Smoke was coming out of the door to her right, and she opened it immediately in fear something was on fire. No, it was just Hirata feeding the oven some wood in the midst of a highly dis-organized kitchen. Konan was standing behind Hirata coaching her. "Make sure you put some in the back too, Hirata." She ordered. "Hai!" Hirata coughed after inhaling some of the black smoke, but she persisted. Miyuki walked further into the room only to trip over a broom, this made Konan notice her. "Oh, hello Miyuki, we don't need any help. I think your friend Hirata has the hang of it." He said with a smile. Miyuki fumbled up in front of Konan to on look Hirata's actions with her. "Oh, ok. Just wanted to make sure she didn't get a hold of any matches. Once she did and she went all pyro-maniac on me…" Miyuki said over the fire, shuddering at the memory. Hirata heard this remark, "Hey, it was just once you know…" She said keeping her concentration on the fire. Miyuki giggled and said, "Aren't you gonna have trouble because of the mess Sempei? I mean, seriously, I bet there are a million bugs in here already! By the way, what happened to the puppet head?" Hirata just straightened up and gave Miyuki a thumbs-up. "It's ok, I'll manage. Oh, the puppet head? I burned it off, Sasori couldn't even think of that." She said, laughing, "You two can leave now, I think I know where the food is." Konan nodded and left out of the messy room, Miyuki tried to follow but tripped over countless amounts of clutter. She left the room disgusted and hoped for the well being of Hirata. Miyuki continued down the hallway again, she was planning to go back to Deidara's room, but when she turned the corner, Sasori and Deidara himself ambushed her. Deidara covered her mouth and with the help of Sasori, carried her off to a fairly small closet, but it fit the three of them. She was still thrashing about and landed a punch in Sasori's stomach, making him clutch it while Deidara said, "It's ok, un. We're not gonna rape you, but we want answers, un." Miyuki calmed down as her eyes adjusted to the poor lighting, "Oh, I thought you two were Kakuzu and Hidan or something. Never though you'd be in a conspiracy together…" She mumbled trying not to laugh at Sasori who was in pain because of her. "Whatever…" Sasori mumbled, sinking down to the floor because of the power of the impact. "So, what is it?" Miyuki asked looking up away from Sasori's crumpled figure at Deidara. He took a deep breath and demanded, "What's for lunch, un?!!?" Miyuki just looked up at him with a quizzical face and said, "You know I have no idea, but I thought it'd be something more important than that." Sasori god up and punched Deidara in the head. "Yes, it is. The brat got it all wrong. We want to know what the tests are, and if you think you can pass them easily or not." He explained. Miyuki replied, "Oh! Well, I can't tell you that." She said winking and sticking out her tongue like a 5 year old. Sasori and Deidara grumbled and slouched. "Why the heck would you actually listen to Tobi, un?" Deidara asked. Miyuki ignored him and continued with what she was going to say next. "But I'll tell you if we can pass them easily or not." Sasori and Deidara looked at her hopefully. "I'm sure Sempei and I can pass the first 8. But the last 2… Will be hard…" Miyuki said seriously, she lowered her head when she mentioned the last two. Deidara and Sasori gazed questioningly down at her, and were surprised when she shot her head back up, "But we'll definitely be true members of the Akatsuki." She said confidently, beaming up at the two men. And with that, she parted them and kept them from cornering her again as she opened the door and headed down to Deidara's room again. Deidara stared at Miyuki as she left, Sasori did, but he turned his gaze to see Deidara gazing at Miyuki walking down the hallway. He hit him in the back of the head again, "Stop ogling, brat." Deidara didn't even looked phased, he just said still staring at Miyuki leaving, "Wonder what the two final ones are, un…" Deidara mumbled, he stepped out of the closet, Sasori following him. He continued, "She's a real nice girl, un…" Sasori just sighed and hit Deidara in the back of the head again as he walked to the kitchen, he got curious about what was for lunch too. Sasori turned left and Deidara turned right, Sasori was headed towards the kitchen and Deidara was going to his room to have more conversations with Miyuki and his hands. Sasori sighed and thought about why he wanted to what Hirata was making, Deidara rubbed the back of his head where Sasori had hit him as he thought about why Miyuki was so nice to him. They both thought that the two new girls were immensely intriguing.

**I hope you're not too freaked out about that ambush, Miyuki... O3O  
Well, the tests are coming up! And it's bound to get more action-filled!! :D (No matter how suck-ish I write it... ^^'')**


	10. Lunch of Complications

**Hmm, I've been under a non-writing spell lately ^^;  
More 'suspense' until the tests I guess! Don't worry, it'll be coming soon! (I hope .___.'')**

Hirata was laboring away in the kitchen when Sasori bombarded into the steam filled room. "What brings you here, Danna?" Hirata asked, wiping her forehead and smiling in satisfaction, examining a bubbling pot on the stove. Sasori didn't anticipate approaching her so loudly, he had meant to come in silently and surprise her by asking her what she was making over her shoulder, but seems it didn't work out. "O-oh…" He said in shock ogling at all the food that was already made. There was a rice cooker next to the food pantry that was emitting steam; it smelled good. Readily sitting next to it, 12 pairs of chopsticks were resting on top of 12 small bowls that were stacked up to equal the height of the rice cooker. When you looked across the room, Hirata was still inspecting the stove for any mishaps that might happen to the bubbling stew that was on it. She turned down the heat on the stove and picked up a knife that was sitting on a cutting board next to it. Hirata spun around and pointed the knife at Sasori, with a wink, she said, "Or should I say, what has thou brought you here, most valued Danna?" in a childish medieval tone. Sasori didn't really know what to say, he stepped back nervously and said, "U-uh… I don't know, just wanted to see what was cooking." With that he turned around and tried to rush out the door. But before he was even partially outside the doorway, a knife had soared dangerously close to Sasori's face and stabbed the doorframe. "Aw, I missed~" Hirata pretended to pout with a playful grin on her face. When Sasori turned around and stared with huge stunned eyes at her, Hirata giggled. "You don't have to leave Danna, in fact, I was kinda lonely. Besides, I could use some help." She informed Sasori, walking across the room to try to yank the kitchen knife out of the shabby doorframe. Sasori just nodded with the same stunned eyes on his face.

Then he noticed there was no longer the puppet head dangling off of Hirata's finger. "What'd you do to the puppet head?!!?!??" He screeched, making Hirata turn her head to face him with a guilty smile. "Well… um… You see," Hirata tried to explain with worried laughs in between her words, a sweat drop appeared on her forehead and she scratched the back of her head, "It would be too much of a hassle to cook with it attached to my finger you know… So I, uh…" She hesitated and Sasori gave her an expectant glare as he crossed his arms waiting. "I burned it off." Hirata finished with a surrendering sigh; she lowered her head and waited for Sasori's punishment. Surprisingly, he laughed, making Hirata raise her head in curiosity. Sasori looked down at her with an evil smirk and crouched down so he was eye level with her. He then raised his arm with a fist above her head; he let his fist fall with a thud on her head before she could do anything about it, it bounced off afterwards and he said, "Baka." He got up from his crouched position and waited for Hirata to say something. She was rubbing the spot she had been hit and was pouting immensely, "But Danna~" she whined, "_You_ couldn't think of anything to do with it." Sasori realized it when she said it and felt a pang in his stomach, a fatal blow by Hirata. So he lowered his head in shame and let the purple swirls engulf the top part of his head. Hirata realized her victory and smiled evilly, "So you're going to help me, right?" She asked with the same smile on her face. Sasori just glared up at her and gave in; he straightened up once more and allowed Hirata to instruct him about what to do.

"Well," Hirata started as she skipped to the middle of the kitchen, "Since you have no idea in the least of how to cook, you will call me Sempai in this field of skill!" She finished triumphantly, putting her hands on her hips and nodding. Sasori was definitely in despair, he followed Hirata farther into the kitchen and mumbled, "What do you want me to do…" Hirata waited expectantly, Sasori looked at her with a frown, "Sempai…" He submitted. Hirata beamed at his cooperation and started to shoot orders at him, "Alright, Sasori, start with scooping the rice into the bowls. Make sure they're all equal, and when you're done with that, start chopping up some carrots and leave them in a bowl for me to put in the stew. You can organize the pots and pans too, I only cleaned them just now." With that, Sasori sulked off to the rice cooker and lifted the lid; the steam erupted from the cooker and into his face, making Hirata giggle behind his back. When he spun around to glare at her, she was stirring the stew and suppressing further laughter.

Deidara meanwhile had gotten back to his room, and was continuing his nonchalant conversations with Miyuki. "So you sure you're not worried about all the other tests, un?" Deidara asked, sitting cross-legged on his bed with his hands on his thighs palms up, Migi and Midari had currently been in the conversation. Miyuki was sitting on the floor directly across from Deidara; she was propped up on her hands and laid back. "Well, as long as the people involved don't try to kill me. Other than that, I'm sure I'll pass with pure wittiness, Sempai might think of something else though… I'm not sure, she takes a long time to think…" Miyuki replied with a confident look on her face, when she mentioned Hirata, she lowered her head in thought. Deidara really didn't care much about Hirata, so he commented, "She'll probably pass out of sheer stupidity, un. She doesn't seem to look very impressive, save the fact she claims she can cook, un." He mimicked Miyuki and propped himself up on his arms as he leaned back, he looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Don't judge a book by its cover, Deidei-Kun." Miyuki said in the silence, surprising Deidara and causing him to look back at Miyuki, her brow was still furrowed in thought. "Hmm, whatever un…" He waved off the remark, it just added to one of the mysterious things he didn't care to even think about. Even though most of the things she said puzzled him, she seemed like a brilliant, protective, caring, and talented girl; Hirata didn't seem like much to him. She seemed like the clumsy, disoriented, absurd, and stupid type. Not interesting to him, he personally believed life should be interesting and full of color with swift, powerful moments of beauty. He knew Miyuki agreed with him, which fascinated him more, but he was curious why Miyuki would care so much about Hirata of all people.

So he decided to ask, he was too lazy to think it out, "Neh, Miyuki-Chan, why do you like Hirata anyways, un?" Miyuki glanced up at Deidara and raised an eyebrow; she answered bluntly, "She's my friend, why?" Deidara hoped he didn't offend Miyuki and went on, "Well, it just seems different from you in a lot of ways, un. Plus and minus don't match, friends are supposed to match, aren't they, un?" He prayed he didn't upset Miyuki in any way. To his surprise, she smiled, "But we do match, Deidara-Sama. You're only looking at a small part of the whole scenario, human beings are much more complex than most things. And you guys keep calling her stupid and stuff, one day she'll knock you out cold and surprise you. She likes doing that a lot," Miyuki giggled to herself, "If she can. Anywho, Sempai likes to surprise people based on knowledge of what people already know, and abruptly change it, or rarely do something out of the ordinary. I like to vary with my emotions and mess people up, that would be being out of the ordinary all the time, and randomizing things a lot." Miyuki preached, she tried to make it as simple as possible for what she said is true; human beings are very complex. Deidara seemed to grasp the concept, and inquired, "Oh… Guess Sasori needs to learn that then, un." Miyuki giggled. "We should go visit Sempai in the kitchen then." Deidara asked why, Miyuki giggled some more, "'Cause that's where Sasori would be. Or should I say, the 'Sexy-Puppet' is most likely with Sempai, in the kitchen, let's go." She kept laughing and got up from the floor, she headed for the door and Deidara followed, he had no idea what the 'Sexy-Puppet' business was about.

Back in the kitchen, Sasori had finished most of his chores and was assembling the pots and pans on hooks on the wall using chakara strings. He finished right when Hirata commanded, "You forgot to chop the carrots, Danna." Sasori grumbled, but he inwardly was having a little bit of fun helping Hirata out. "I feel like we're playing house or something…" He mumbled as he walked across the room. "I should not have to stoop so low." He continued, stopping beside Hirata and staring blandly down at the knife he was supposed to pick up. Hirata was peeling potatoes and replied, "Not house, real life. Get used to it, Danna." She started to hum and smiled while she continued her work. Sasori remained stubborn and was getting quite annoyed, "Why are you using that tone of voice with me? You're the one of lower rank here." Hirata looked sideways at Sasori, "Would you like to be head cook for probably the rest of your life?" She set down a fully peeled potato and faced Sasori; he just realized she was wearing a green apron with the white silhouette of an apple on it. "Listen here, life is a game, basically, that's what it is. This game has a lot of complex rules, you know. Different equations have different outcomes. This particular part of the game goes like this: Danna plus cooking equals listen to Hirata. Got it?" Hirata wasn't impatient, she just didn't want Sasori to just quit on her like that, and she hated quitters. Sasori was just staring back at her with his bored eyes and an annoyed expression. "Well, listen here, Hirata plus acting big equals annoyed Sasori." He said dully, and when Hirata sighed in reply, he stomped on her foot; which was still bare might I add. Hirata yelped and jumped up in pain, she clutched her foot and started hopping around in circles; Sasori nonchalantly looked over back at his station and picked up the knife, starting his chore.

That's when Deidara and Miyuki marched in. Deidara opened the door and popped in through the doorway, with a big grin he said, "Heya, un! What's cooking?" Miyuki popped in through the doorway under Deidara and with an equally radiant grin she added, "Yeah! It smells good!" Sasori was staring with raised eyebrows at them both with a skeptical look. Hirata was continuing rubbing her foot in attempts to make it feel better; Sasori stomped on it pretty hard. **A/N ~ I mean really, his foot's made of WOOD! D: (And those shoes? Why wouldn't it hurt?) **She was seated on the floor under the stove and next to Sasori's feet. She was the last to realize everyone else's presence. Deidara abruptly broke the peace, "Never thought you'd stoop so low, Sasori no Danna, un…" At that, Sasori was enraged. He gripped the knife he was holding in his hand and was aggravated to the max. Hirata looked up at him with worry, she muttered, "D-Danna… Don't do it…" Miyuki also was looking at Sasori with frightful eyes, Deidara seemed to not notice his rage and kept staring at Sasori with the same astonishment in his eyes from the fact he was 'cooking'. In midst of the heat, Deidara let out an 'un' questioning what the stressed silence was about as he looked around. Sasori cracked and sent the knife flying across the room towards Deidara's head. Too bad for him it hit the metal part of his headband; right in the middle of the village insignia too. Deidara was in mild surprise, but laughed when Sasori started cursing like a maniac. The sounds he made were frustrated ones signifying his pure agony, Deidara clutched his stomach and laughed harder, Miyuki couldn't help but join in. Hirata meanwhile was wrapped around Sasori's leg preventing him from doing any more damage. "My- GOD, SASORI, UN!!!" Deidara gasped between fits of laughter, the knife still jammed in his headband, enraging Sasori even more. It became extremely hard for Hirata to keep him down; Miyuki's equally loud laughter didn't help either.

Hirata attempted to talk Sasori out of his rage. "No! Danna, it's ok, he didn't really mean anything! It's all right, he's probably just jealous; he didn't really mean it, right, Deidei-Chan? Seriously, just stop it with this killing intent, really! WE NEED THE AKATSUKI TO CARRY ON!! Come on, Danna, he's a human, not a puppet, they're two different things!! SASORI!!" Hirata said with distressed words. Deidara ruined it all, "Ha, you think, un? Sasori no Danna must be malfunctioning or something, un!" He burst out, continuing his bellowing laughter. "I'M- GONNA- GET YOU, BRAT!!" Sasori roared. Not leaving Hirata's grasp, but dragging her with him, Sasori charged at Deidara and he started to run. Deidara was still laughing like an idiot while the knife remained in his headband, Sasori was dragging Hirata on the ground as he pursued him, but when he sharply turned a corner, Hirata was flung off of Sasori's leg and into the wall across from the kitchen's doorway. The two grown men were speeding down the hallway, one bawling and taunting his chaser, while the other was cursing loudly with many annoyed marks surrounding his head. Miyuki continued laughing for she enjoyed the Akatsuki theatre; it included a lot of grown men fighting, which she found absolutely hilarious. She turned her head to see her companion in a lump. "So- you and Deidara just cost me my worker." Hirata mumbled in despair. Miyuki smiled, even though Hirata couldn't see it, and replied, "Yup!" Miyuki beamed enjoying what just happened. Hirata shifted "Well then-" She got up completely and was still facing the wall, there was something about the eerie way she was speaking that frightened Miyuki. "S-Sempai?" She stuttered, Hirata just laughed a low-pitched and menacing laugh. "Well, workers gotta be replaced, don't they, Yuki-Chan." She turned around abruptly and started to walk slowly towards Miyuki with her head facing the ground and eyes black and sulking, Miyuki was staring at her with wide eyes. The next thing she knew she was being dragged by her collar into the kitchen to finish preparing lunch.

They were done in a manner of minutes; Hirata seemed pleased when they were all gathered around at the same table examining her food. "Looks good…" Itachi mumbled, scooping some of his rice out of its bowl, inspecting it for any glass shards. "Oh thanks! Couldn't have done it if _Miyuki_ and _Sasori _weren't there to _help_ me." Hirata replied with a radiant beam as she stared at Miyuki, who was laughing nervously and Sasori, who was sitting next to Deidara, who was equipped with a cast, bandages, and many bruises. After glaring at Deidara, Hirata went back to smiling at the rest of the Akatsuki, "Dig in!" she called out, and all at once, the Akatsuki replied, "Itadakimasu!" They started feasting on the food that took over an hour to make, when it only should've taken 20 minutes. It tasted good nonetheless. The quite hum of chatter started in between the Akatsuki members, and it seemed like they were having a good time enjoyed the privileges of having a prepared meal for once. Hirata and Miyuki were conversing about their test strategies in the midst of the merry conversations. "I'd like to make an announcement," Miyuki said as she rose out of her seat, the Akatsuki quieted down. "We're going to split up the tests between Sempai and I, she'll do the first three, and I'll do the next three," She paused, "But when the 7th test comes up, we'll have to do that one together. The final two will be separate." Miyuki finished with a nod, "That is our strategy. We'll just have to hope it works out for the both of us." Tobi was happy they were so into his plan. "But Hira-Chan, Miyu-Chan, there's 10 tests, not 9." He pointed out, literally pointing with his chopsticks. Miyuki glared at Tobi with a face only Deidara could've pulled off, "There were only 9 on the paper you gave us." Miyuki replied with an agitated tone. Tobi solved this problem quickly, "The last one's a surprise I guess~!!" Miyuki sighed and nodded, she seated herself and continued her meal. Hirata seemed pretty happy, she merrily shouted, "Just you wait, we're not gonna become your maids just yet!!" With that, the two girls nodded to each other and continued their meal with a strange feeling of triumph.

**Ha, what a wonderful feeling of... Relief?  
Hey look! They're in smaller paragraphs this time!! 8D  
**


	11. First Test: Retrieve

**Test 1 here it is!! 8D**

"Ugh," Kisame blurted out as he leaned back in his chair and plopped his feet on the table in front of him, right ankle over the left, "I'm stuffed." He said, patting his stomach with a satisfied toothy grin. Everyone was standing up and talking to each other, it seemed there was quite a bit of commotion. Kisame was the only one who remained seated at the table and asked, "So are we just gonna start the tests right now? What're we supposed to do?" He searched the room for anyone who heard his question and was capable of answering it. To his surprise Hidan appeared next to him and let out a tortured sigh, "Yeah, Tobi says we're all supposed to just go on like it was a normal day. Jeez, I wonder what these tests really are, I just want to watch the stupid one fail all of them." He cackled at the end, which turned into one of his maniac laughs. Kakuzu was highly annoyed by his abrupt laughter and stopped conversing with Itachi to approach Hidan. "Why don't you get in the habit of being a little more normal?" Kakuzu growled at Hidan. Suddenly, Hirata appeared, she was smiling like always and across the table from the conversing men, leaning over the back of a chair. "Normal is so stereotypical, it doesn't matter what you act like, unless you're that guy." Hirata said, pointing at Hidan with a grin on her face. Hidan fired back, "Well at least I'm not stupid like you, b****." He sneered, putting his hands behind his head near his over-sized hair comb.

Miyuki then suddenly appeared next to Hirata, she also was leaning over the back of a chair and grinning, she spat back at Hidan, "Look who's talking, even if Sempai joins, you'll remain the stupidest member of the Akatsuki yet." Hidan just gave her a displeased look, and thought really hard for a comeback. Miyuki added something before Hidan's mind even thought of the first possibility, "I admit Sempai's not normal, but you're just abnormal to the lowest state." Miyuki nodded and Hirata looked over at her with a 'is that what you really think of me?' face. "I'll have you know I don't give a care for normality. It's over-rated." Hirata laughed, punching Miyuki on the shoulder in a friendly way, only to get a friendly slap in the back of the head, only a little too hard, causing Hirata's face to slam smack into the table in front of her. Everyone currently watching laughed, Kisame was chuckling with his toothy grin, Kakuzu was laughing his low-pitched laugh, Miyuki was already giggling, and Hidan was cackling louder than before. Hirata scrambled to lift her face, which was red with a worried and embarrassed expression on it. Before Hirata could try to defend herself with words, Tobi's voice was heard throughout the room, rather loudly. "Hira-Chan~ Please see me." Everyone covered their ears, as there was an aftermath of killer high-pitched screeches of the microphone. Hirata pulled a long face, sighed and scurried over to where Tobi stood. Miyuki looked at the back of her Sempai's head and worried it'd stay attached to her shoulders until the end of the tests. She inwardly wished her friend good luck, for the tests started now.

Hirata felt nervous, she was physically shaking and was looking around with wide eyes as if those might be the last glimpses of her life, but she had no idea why, most of the time she wasn't sure of why she felt a certain way, normally there wasn't a need for her to feel that way, but she did. In this scenario, she had reason to but did not acknowledge it. Hirata finally approached Tobi with her shoulders raised and arms at her sides with her fists clenched. Tobi was about the same height as her, so he looked straight into her face when he said, "You ready Hira-Chan? Remember, you have to get the marked object from Pein." Hirata mutely nodded and managed a worried corner smile at Tobi, who was emitting off rays of excitement, which is what Hirata should've felt if it weren't for the pit in her stomach. _Maybe I shouldn't have eaten before the tests…_ She thought as Tobi ordered the Akatsuki to go to their rooms for the first test. They did, and in no time the Akatsuki were back in their rooms thinking they should use the opportunity to take a nap. Miyuki remained in the room with Hirata and Tobi, who were still standing in the corner of it. "So, good luck!" Tobi said; he saluted to Hirata who nodded, bowed and smiled nervously. Tobi muttered something, made a hand sign and Hirata was suddenly gone in a puff of smoke. Miyuki gasped in surprise and ran over to where Hirata was once standing, there was now a square gap in the floor, and Hirata apparently went falling through it. "This was part of the test!?" Miyuki shouted at Tobi, worried about her friend. Tobi had a sweat drop appear on his head, "I-It's ok, Miyu-Chan! She's ok, she just has to get through a maze in the basement filled with traps, beat some sort of monster, and retrieve the specified object!" Tobi sputtered apologetically, it didn't help much that he mentioned all the dangers in the basement of the Akatsuki lair. Miyuki was not pleased and pulled a despaired annoyed face at Tobi that would've made Deidara proud, "She better be alive when she gets out, or you won't be." She growled menacingly at Tobi, who stepped backwards in fear. Then Miyuki stormed out of the room.

Hirata felt the floor beneath her disappear and gasped with shock, the next thing she knew, she was falling into darkness as Yuki-Chan and Tobi slipped away from her view. She couldn't see much anything and worried less about it than the fact she didn't know when or where she was going to land. For all she knew, she could've landed on spikes, fallen 50 stories and landed on hard cement, or just not land at all. She didn't forget to scream amongst her thoughts, at first it was out of the fear that the floor beneath her went away, and then it was because it turned dark, then it was finally for the fact she was falling. Frantically thinking of what to do, she spread out her arms and felt for something to grab onto. She moved her feet from under her so she was in a belly-flop position. Her hair was flying everywhere; in a second she found a wall and flung herself to it, slamming into it in the process. She curled herself into a ball out of habit and put her hand out feeling for something to grab on to, her eyes wide in the darkness. She realized the wall was wet, and slippery, she didn't like the touch of it but kept her hand flat against it anyway, then she felt something. She couldn't compare it to anything she's ever felt before, but it was hard and wet, like a metal bar. Hirata grasped it and curled her fingers around it, gripping it with all her might. It stopped her from falling, but her arm felt like it was going to be ripped out of its socket when the rest of her body fell. She flung her other arm up and wrapped her other hand on the metal bar, it seemed like there were more above it and below it, and she guessed it was some sort of latter. Once Hirata caught her breath, she let out a final, shuddering exhale before she decided to examine where she was, if there was anything to see, which there wasn't. So she felt around with her feet, finalizing that she was on a latter. _Maybe it goes all the way up back to the room? _Hirata thought hopefully, so she let go with her right hand of the metal bar and outstretched her arm above her, sure enough o find another bar. She went up like this for 14 more bars and started to hear voices. It sounded like Tobi's, "-She just has to get through a maze in the basement filled with traps, beat some sort of monster, and retrieve the specified object!" Hirata was both relieved and worried by his words, she quickened her climbing pace when she heard Yuki-Chan's voice. She saw some specks of light and imagined it would be the floor; she got up to the last bar and started banging on the 'floor' and yelling at the top of her lungs. She heard the door slam and hoped somebody was going to come in and help her. She proceeded to plead for help for the next 2 minutes that seemed like 20, and grew tired of it, her arms started to ache. Losing hope and being engulfed in despair, Hirata stopped yelling and banging. She sighed as a worried face came over her, although nobody could see it. She dreaded the thought but thought it anyway, "_Down we go then…"_

It was more terrifying going down the latter then going up, she was moving away from the light, she dreaded the dark. Nothing was heard except the steady rhythm of her feet meeting the bars and the shuffle of them coming off. She was glad she still wasn't equipped with shoes, her bare skin helped with the grip on the bars. Steadily she continued down, down and down, she reached back to where she reached the 14th bar down and knew she was back where she was before. Hirata stopped her progression down and started to think, "_It's not that bad down here, people will find me eventually, right? Tobi really didn't want me to die down here?"_ She shuddered at the remembrance of his words, she wasn't in the mood for getting lost in a maze and getting eaten by some sort of animal-thing, so she sighed and looked pointlessly up towards the 'floor'. She didn't realize it, but a warm tear rolled off her cheek, soon to be followed by many more, then a whimper escaped from her mouth, she muffled it with a hand and closed her eyes tightly. She leaned closer to the bars and the wall and desperately tried to think of what to do, even thoughts failed her now. Hirata wouldn't believe it was the end though, she just thought of all the people she knew and what they could be doing right now, while she was hanging on to a latter in a mysterious dark place. Hirata thought of her family, a few sobs were audible, she loved them and left them behind; what did they do when they realized she was gone? She thought of her friends at school, her enemies, and finally thought of Miyuki. She wondered if Yuki-Chan would survive the tests when she herself couldn't manage even part of one? "She probably would, and right now, she would do something really smart I can't think of." Hirata cried out in desperate hope to be heard, but of course nobody could. Her limbs were starting to ache and her foot was sore, making her remember Sasori. She blushed a little at the thought and smiled, it felt different from the frown that was plastered on her face a minute ago, and kept doing so. Then she thought of happy things like what Miyuki and her could do if they actually did join the Akatsuki. With new motivation and happiness at her side, Hirata decided she would go down the latter. 5 steps down she started to laugh at herself, "God, I'm so stupid! There's really never any reason to cry for me." She continued smiling and laughing until her foot hit something, it felt like wood, it felt like a platform.

Hirata tested it, kind of alternated putting weight on it and not, and concluded it was safe to step on, so she did. It made a creaking noise and she lifted her foot quickly, and then slowly set it back down on the platform, then the next foot. Then she let go of the bar and put her full weight on the wood platform, she breathed out slowly in fear that it might fall because of any sudden movements. Hirata started to back up against the wall to feel around for any more bars leading down, she didn't', but realized there was no wall by her feet. She kicked her heel into the space to find emptiness. Hirata slowly crouched down and felt for how big the space was, it seemed it would fit her crouching down, she put her hand in the space to see how far back it went, she felt to other wall, she decided to go through. It was a difficult process for Hirata had to go on her stomach without destroying the platform she was on, and then she had to shimmy off of it and into the space military style. Once she was in she didn't have to think about falling, just the dark and what was ahead; she thought it was like caving back at home except you didn't know if there were exits. It went on for a while, many turns, right, right, left, right, left, left, right, left, right, dead end, back and right, left, fork, right, and so on. Eventually Hirata got to a room, she was able to stand up but it was still dark. She walked forward and stubbed her toe and tripped while she was at it, Hirata had arrived at a flight of stairs, and went up them for another tiresome time. Then she arrived in a hallway, lit by four torches, she looked around and kept on walking, and she looked in front of her and froze.

It was a terrifying sight; a huge skeleton of a fox-like creature was standing with its menacing teeth in front of her, but behind large black bars. She was only the equivalent of the length of its foot compared to it. Hirata stopped gawking at it and figured it was probably the monster she was supposed to encounter. It seemed to the Akatsuki didn't take care of it well, there were spider webs in between the ribs of the skeleton and the large gaping holes for its eyes were also infested with webs. Hirata looked passed it and saw a door; it also appeared ancient and dusty. "Must be important, why else would this thing protect it if it wasn't?" Hirata thought aloud, it seemed her fantasy reading came in handy. She approached the monster and half expected it to jump out at her, but it remained in its position, silent and motionless in front of bars. Hirata noted that she could easily fit in between them, so she slipped through and quietly tip toed under the beast skeleton, she put her hand on the doorknob and gave it a jiggle. "Seems it'll open…" She mumbled to herself as she gave it a push, and it did, it flung open into Pein's room, how convenient for her. Hirata looked around mutely and almost gasped when she saw Pein in his bed sleeping soundly, he looked alert even in his 'sleep'. She scanned the room quickly for the marked object Tobi was talking about, it stuck out so much Hirata wondered if Pein noticed its difference. It was a kunai, radioactive no doubt, and there was a neon yellow ribbon tied to it, not matching the rest of the gray room. She had the urge to just go over and take it, but thought to herself it couldn't be that easy, so she tip toed over there and stood over it. She fretted around and stood anxiously at the sleeping Pein, wondering if it mattered a lot much to him. Hirata decided just to suck it up and take it, so she literally inhaled realizing there was some dust from the other room, and sneezed, rather loudly, but after picking up the kunai. It awoke Pein no problem, he shot out of his bed and spotted Hirata, and wide eyed he started charging at her. Hirata was also wide eyed, she glanced around quickly and spotted the door out of the room and hopefully back into the lair.

She flung it open and glanced around the hallway, she'd never been in this part of the lair before and didn't know where she was, and she also didn't know if she could outrun Pein. She suddenly realized he was right behind her, so she gasped and sprinted out the door, slamming it right behind her, conveniently in his face and knocking him out. She still thought he was behind her as she sped down the hallway and turned a corner. Looking behind her she spotted no Pein, but she still kept running, and right into Sasori, she toppled right on top of him. She stared down at him with an extremely surprised face and he stared up with the same expression. Hirata's brain registered it was Sasori she was on top of. "Oh! Danna! I'm so glad to see you!!" She shouted with happiness and relief, she was smiling widely now and bent down to hug Sasori. He didn't respond but you could tell he had no idea what was going on, he just came out of his room for a snack and Hirata suddenly appears running for her life and right smack into him, but he didn't mind the hug, he was kinda sorry for the foot stomping before lunch. Sasori sat up and Hirata remained to cling to him, Sasori sputtered, "H-Hirata, don't you have a test to do?" Hirata suddenly let go of him and said "Oh yeah!!" rather excitedly, she smiled and him and stood up. Sasori just realized she was holding a strange kunai with a ribbon on it, he wondered what that was for. He didn't have time to ask because Hirata leaped over him and started speeding off down the hallway, he realized she was pretty fast.

Hirata finally got back to the room she was in before her little adventure, and searched it for Tobi. She didn't find him but found the speakers he used to make abrupt announcements. She picked it up and pressed a button on the side of the microphone, she talked into it and said, "Good afternoon, Akatsuki, I would like to inform you all that I have completed the first test. I said it before and I'll say it again, Yuki-Chan and I won't be your maids just yet!" There was triumphant laughter heard throughout the Akatsuki, the triumphant laughter of the successful and proudly happy Hirata Nozomi, who finished the first test of the Akatsuki.

**I tried to make it really short so I could upload it in time ^^;  
Scary update pplz telling me to update are scary ._____.**


	12. Second Test: Recapture

**Whew, I've been working on this chapter for a long time XD (more like I started it a long time ago but waited until now to finish it)  
I don't exactly know how to describe some things in this chapter, please excuse me ^^;**

Hirata had kept laughing, she figured it was part of the hysteria of relief that she didn't die or get beat up by Pein during the test. She set down the microphone and took a deep breath; slow, single claps within second intervals were heard. Hirata spun around to see who was making the clapping, finding Zetsu, engulfed in shadows standing in the corner of the room. "Oh, phew, it's you, Zetsu-San." Hirata sighed, putting a hand on her hip and bending down as she did so, queasily smiling. Zetsu didn't say anything, he just started walking toward Hirata, one slow step at a time, it was almost menacing. _Tap… tap… tap…_ Hirata was scared by now, having straightened up and gone wide-eyed. Zetsu was only a few steps away now, Hirata backed away, wondering what the hell was going on with him. That's where he stopped, his Venus flytrap apparel crackled a bit, and then he spoke, "Make sure you pass all the tests, or at least make it to the 7th one, I'm pretty hungry." He leaned over Hirata, frightening her even more, with his yellow beady-eyed stare she almost felt like his gaze was burning through her very existence. Then, too quick for Hirata to realize, Zetsu swiped the kunai that was resting in her shorts pocket; disappearing through the floor immediately after he had it in his grasp.

Hirata let out a gasp, "_Is this part of the test? I __knew__ it wasn't that easy!" _She wasn't sure what to do, but Zetsu went to the floor below, she figured she could take the stairs down if she couldn't go through the floor like he could, so she high-tailed out of the room, and sprinted down the nearest flight of stairs she caught sight of. Hirata was flying down them, practically skipping 3 or 4 steps at a time; she hit a landing, now realizing where she was. "_These are the stairs we went up yesterday! Weird, so much packed into only 2 days so far…" _She thought as she ran down another flight of stairs, there she noticed was a hallway she didn't realize the first day. Hirata paused in front of it, wondering whether or not to go in it and catching her breath.

She decided to go in it, gulping and inhaling sharply, Hirata stepped into the hallway, her footstep echoing through it. She took more steps, each becoming faster until again she was in a full sprint. Hirata glanced right and left as she ran through the long hallway, looking for any doors or corners leading to other hallways. She found a turn at the very end of the hallway; the walls were cracked and seemed to be rotting away, brown cardboard boxes with who knows what in them littered the floor.

"And yet another hallway to cautiously enter…" Hirata thought aloud, seeing if this hallway echoed like the last, it did. For a while in fact, the word "enter" kept repeating and Hirata stood there waiting for it to stop, but it didn't. Was it just she or was the echo getting louder? Was it just a trick of the mind that the echo kept getting lower in pitch, eventually sounding like a man speaking? Was it was merely her imagination that it didn't sound like her voice anymore? It sounded menacing, but no, it was all in her head, she was going crazy, that was all. Pretty soon the word 'enter' was repeating faster and faster in her head, louder and louder, nonstop. Hirata pointlessly covered her ears and crouched down, eyes wide and pupils miniscule. She stared at the ground, as it seemed to get darker and colder, darker and colder. Chills ran up and down her spine, the voice becoming more ghastly and not leaving her head. Hirata screamed out, wanting to be heard all over again, and tried to move without success. She continued to crouch in despair, shutting her eyes tightly closed. She tried to comfort herself with her own words but she only heard the voice repeat over and over.

Something pushed her from behind; Hirata stumbled forward, letting go of her ears and miraculously being able to hear again. Hirata opened her eyes wide and gasped; she began to fall.

If it wasn't as terrifying the first time, it was twice as much this time, it seemed as though she was going triple the speed and _rolling_. Hirata was in a tunnel path of some sort, there were many turns and it just kept going down. "_I'll reach hell soon_." Hirata thought, starting to feel queasy. Out of the blur she saw while rolling in what seemed to be a human-sized marble track, a glimpse of light shined through the darkness. Only feeling relief, Hirata didn't brace herself for the fall ahead. And so she fell, again, but in light. Spreading her arms and legs out once again; Hirata was falling in a belly flop position. Though her left arm was still outstretched in front of her. Before she was aware, she landed, on _it_.

There was a fresh _snap _and Hirata let out a scream. Her vision blurred in and out, her arm hurt, _a lot_. She landed on something soft, she couldn't clearly see it, but it was green so she figured it was moss or grass. Hirata had fallen right onto her outstretched left arm, which resulted in the snapping of bone between her wrist and elbow. Hirata could see the blood, for the bone was protruding out of her skin. Seeing it horrified her, but it was nothing compared to the pain. It felt as if a thousand needles were stabbing every one of the cells in her left arm, mainly where the bone was damaged. Where it was she felt a terrible shooting pain, which was aching at the same time. Man, it was _excruciating_. Hirata had never broken a bone before, and had never known such pain, much less what to do. She needed to find help, unless it would just magically come to her, she doubted that. So she found the strength buried deep inside her to get up, trying to avoid any more damage to her bleeding arm.

Hirata examined the place, having the ability to see again, and found herself in a bright forest. It would've made a nice picnic spot if her arm weren't broken at the moment. What she had landed on, she saw, was indeed moss. "_Moss! Maybe I can use it to wipe up some of the blood on my arm." _Hirata thought, so she bent down, again minding her damaged arm, and gripped a handful of moss. Pulling it out of the ground was hard, he had to lean back until it finally budged, and when it did Hirata fell backwards onto her ass. She didn't have a free arm to brace herself with so this fall was a bit harder than the others she took. Hirata noticed the moss she retrieved tore in a long strip, "Bingo." She said aloud.

In times of need, your brain works better than normal, so Hirata was able to think to use the long strip of moss as a sling for her arm. She had torn another wider strip of moss and wrapped it around her arm. Hirata didn't apply any pressure to where the bone was broken though; it still hurt like hell. She got up again, her left arm more "portable" and again looked over the area. "That's strange, this looks a lot like where Zetsu brought Yuki-Chan and me to the entrance of the lair…" Hirata thought aloud, walking out of the patch of moss she fell on and turning left and right. Hirata then looked straight ahead and spied a gray blur of what seemed like a building, off in the distance. Having poor vision, for all she could know it was a car, but chances were, she thought, it was the Akatsuki entrance. Then all of a sudden a crazy idea came up into Hirata's mind, "_If that's the entrance, then the well and possibly home is-"_ Hirata spun around and indeed saw the vaguely familiar path in which Zetsu, herself and her friend had come to the Akatsuki lair. "Home… Is that way I guess…" She said, finding herself taking a step towards the path, and another, and another… She just kept stepping towards home, but then paused, _what about Yuki-Chan?_

Hirata was just about to turn right around- she would never leave a friend- when Zetsu appeared. Out of a tree, of course, half of his body visible and the rest mysteriously hidden within the branch overhead Hirata. She looked up, terrified; Zetsu's yellow beady eyes gleamed with a strange savage hunger. He smiled a sharp-toothed grin and out of the blue, dropped down. It was only reflexes that saved Hirata from being fallen upon by Zetsu. The surprising thing was he interpreted it in the first place. He never hit the ground; more like went right through it and disappeared into it. Before Hirata could even register it into her mind Zetsu appeared once again, but behind her, without her knowing it. "**Blood…**" He growled, making her spin around with wide eyes. He lunged at her, aiming for her left arm where it was broken, but got much lower than that for Hirata had tried to leap out of the way.

It was creepy, and painful. The sling Hirata made out of the moss broke and her damaged arm was exposed. But it wasn't seeing her arm again that made her scream and yell out in pain, Zetsu had firmly gripped his jaws on her arm slightly above her wrist. She of course was trying to pull away, but the broken bone above where Zetsu was biting kept her from doing so. She at least had a firm grip on his head with her right hand. But his teeth were chewing through her skin, she was bleeding more than before, before she knew it Zetsu was already biting through the muscle. Hirata saw blinding light before her eyes and her head was throbbing with the pain messages surging to it. Tears were flowing down her face as much as blood was flowing from her arm.

Zetsu jerked his head abruptly sideways, snapping bone once again. Hirata screamed, louder than before, cursing him and giving his head a firm pull away from her arm and falling to the ground. She lay there, curled up around her arm and where her hand used to be. It wasn't very pretty, a stump of bone, blood, and flesh below where her wrist should've been while a little more up the arm than that was still a broken bone, damaged more than before. Zetsu was cackling and chewing on Hirata's hand, not caring for her pain, he thought he'd finish her off later if he thought her hand was tasty enough.

Hirata had opened her eyes slightly to scowl at Zetsu, but couldn't manage to lift her gaze to his face. She was about arms length away from him, she couldn't seem to turn her head up and look at his face. Instead she spotted a kunai, resting on the ground next to his foot- it had a neon yellow ribbon around it. She planned it all too quickly, she was almost doubtful of if it would work, but there was no other way. "Animals let their guard down when they are eating…" She mumbled, Zetsu not noticing, as she outstretched her right arm and took the kunai.

With all her might Hirata got up, not minding her left arm this time. As fast as she could, she darted past Zetsu, who still had her hand in his mouth, it made her want to hurl. But still Hirata kept running, toward the gray building-like figure in the distance, willing it to be the Akatsuki lair. Surprisingly it was closer than it seemed, Hirata was happy about that, and in fact it _was_ the Akatsuki lair, _"Thank God!" _She thought, smiling with a worried expression, hoping she could make it there before Zetsu.

He had just noticed Hirata took the kunai when she was a fair distance away from him. In rage, he dropped her hand and darted after her, catching up to her as they neared the Akatsuki lair entrance. Zetsu remembered he left it so people could go in, was he that hungry? He saw Hirata successfully reach the entrance and go in, Zetsu sped up to catch her. Once he got in she was already racing up the stairs frantically, Zetsu could see the worried expression on her face. _Too easy_ he thought, figuring she would go to the meeting room again to find Tobi, he'd just go there and beat her to it by going through the floors. And so he did, appearing the room where they had organized the girls' fates. Zetsu didn't expect her to be there already, so he calmly waited outside the door, thinking of how to finish her off. He wished he didn't leave her hand outside where some other animal could get it. "Yeah, that was a stupid thing to do." He said, "**Shut up, we needed to catch her first.**" He replied to himself in another voice. "We could've simply brought it along."

"**Whatever.**"

"Don't you think she'd be here by now? Considering how fast she was running?"

And indeed she would've been there by then, but Hirata had taken a sharp turn right to the Akatsuki member's individual rooms when she saw Zetsu standing in the room right in front of the door. Zetsu realized she passed too, and swung the door open. The chase began again, but this time, Hirata would have a harder time. What she planned to do was search each room for Tobi and have him stop Zetsu from devouring her. But it was difficult for her because holding a kunai and turning a doorknob with the only had you had left was difficult, Hirata figured she'd at least try. So she reached the end of the hallway, luckily when Zetsu was in the middle of it.

At the first door, the idea popped into her head she could put the kunai in her mouth, so she did, and opened the door with her now free and only hand. Kisame was in the room; he was currently napping but awoke groggily when Hirata opened the door urgently. "Oops." She said quickly, leaving the door open and going to the next one. Kisame raised an eyebrow about what just happened and saw Zetsu pass his door, raging and yelling. The next-door Hirata opened was Itachi's; the same questioning went on in Itachi's mind when she abruptly left. The other door was Hidan's, then Kakuzu's; they had come out of their rooms to see what the ruckus was about. Zetsu was still chasing after Hirata, who was opening doors as fast as she could. The next-door, Hirata saw, was slightly ajar; she kicked it open, having less time now that Zetsu was on her tail. Inside Miyuki and Deidara were sitting, just sitting and having a conversation. Hirata paused for a moment, but only a moment and darted to the next door. During that moment, Miyuki noticed her friend's missing of hand, terrified face and bloody arm with bone protruding out of it. Zetsu sped by, Miyuki left the room and looked down the hallway. Zetsu was chasing Hirata who had a kunai in her mouth. Hirata didn't open the next door because she knew it was Sasori's; Zetsu was also much too close now.

She turned the corner, Tobi appeared, and nonchalantly walking down the hallway and Hirata praised the lord. She ran to him and stopped right in front of him to spin around to face Zetsu. He still charged at her, mouth open and yelling, he was a couple feet away from her now and not looking as though he was going to stop. At the spur of the moment, Hirata grabbed the kunai out of her mouth and outstretched her arm, pointing it at Zetsu. He stopped right in front of it, the point of the kunai only centimeters away from him. "Good job, Hirata." Tobi said, in a low tone, nodding at Zetsu who grumbled and started walking away. "You passed your second test!" He finished in a light voice, clapping and putting a hand on her shoulder.

Then the rest of the Akatsuki appeared, or just those whose door were suddenly opened. Kisame, Itachi, Hidan, Kakuzu, Deidara and Miyuki were standing at the end of the hallway, staring at Hirata. "Did you hear that everybody? Hira-Chan passed the test!!" Tobi repeated, clapping this time. But there was still silence. "What the f*** happened to her hand?" Hidan said looking with disgust at her left arm. Hirata bent down, putting her right hand on her left shoulder, she didn't feel so well. Miyuki raced to Hirata's side, putting an arm around her. "You ok, Sempai?" She asked, worry in her expression and voice. Hirata nodded, just then, she hurled. The other withdrew away from her as the others arrived. Sasori, Pein and Konan, Pein standing their with a confused look and Sasori looking stricken with concern along with Konan.

Konan started walking towards Hirata and stayed clear of the throw-up. She started to give instructions "Kisame clean up this mess. Kakuzu, you'll have to help Hirata's arm situation-" But Sasori cut her off. "I'll deal with her arm, it'll be quick and simple. Painful a little, but faster." Konan sighed. "Alright, just do it quickly." Hirata shook her head, trying to say she wasn't up to moving at the moment. Miyuki had most concern for her, "She's shaking all over!" Konan took charge once more, "Oh, somebody carry her! Deidara get a towel over here, will you?" And orders were followed. Kisame conjured a mop from somewhere and cleaned up Hirata's sick, Deidara gave Miyuki a wet towel that she used to wipe Hirata's face, and Pein carried Hirata to Sasori's room.

In his room Hirata spoke, "H-how are you going to fix it Danna?" She asked, trembling. Everyone else had left except for Miyuki; she refused to leave Hirata's side. "Guess." He said, pulling out an assortment of puppet arms and hands from his storage closet. "Is it gonna hurt?" Hirata continued, eyes widening, she squeezed Miyuki's hand. "Much less than having needles poke into your skin a couple dozen times." He said, gathering his equipment for the operation. "The only part that'll hurt is putting the base on your arm, so it'll be easier to put on the hand." Sasori finished, smiling in a hard-to-read way. Hirata gulped, Sasori kept smiling, and Miyuki said, "Sempai can handle it." Squeezing Hirata's hand reassuringly.

The operation went on, Hirata was glad it went by quickly. Before they all knew it Hirata's left arm looked as good as new. "And you can twist it all the way around, I added a part that spews out fire and water at will. Like my arms." Sasori explained; they all were currently in the meeting room where Hirata was showing off her new arm. Technically it wasn't a full puppet arm, but from where her bone was broken to her hand, (in the middle of her wrist and elbow) it was made of wood.

"Hey, Sempai, your hair's shorter." Miyuki observed, Hirata let out a quizzical sound and found that her hair was shorter. "Huh?!" She exclaimed, Itachi explained, "It was part of the test, I used my Sharingan when you chased Zetsu and broke your arm. It only seemed like you broke your arm but in reality your hair was just cut. But when Zetsu started eating your hand, he broke where you think you already broke you arm and your wrist, enabling him to eat your hand. When you started running I released the Sharingan." Some of them got it but some of them didn't. "Man, at first I thought I just pulled a Deidara by having my left arm basically destroyed, but now I pulled a Sakura too?" Hirata said in disappointment. "Well, you're hair's cuter now!" Miyuki replied, smiling and playing with her friend's hair. "All is well I guess… But we still got **a lot** to do left." Hirata continued. Miyuki nodded and finished, "But you passed the second test without knowing it was!" The second test ended with many changes, a happy note, and much more to come.

**What a cheezy ending...**


End file.
